Christophe Guégan: Skipper & Professional Yachtmaster

Pour les instructeurs de l’école, j’ai rédigé un petit résumé de comment s’est déroulé mon examen.

Master 200 oral exam

The examiner was Captain Dilpergira

After the paperwork (Don’t forget a valid passport!) the first thing he told me was he would only take my first answer even if I will change my mind after. So he asks me to think before giving an answer. One wrong answer in COLREGS and in the collision situations will be a fail for me. Even if he was quite friendly the stress was then very high for me.

• The exam start with a brief discussion about my background and my sea experience
• He asks me as a master to delegate to my OOW the preparation of a passage planning from Antibes to St-Kits. He asks me what I shall verify. Who need to sign it?
• He asks me about required books and document on the bridge.
• He asks me to give some examples of logbooks.
• He asks me to talk about safe watchkeeping practices and then he (as the first mate of my ship) tries to argue with me (as a captain) about an officer that doesn’t want to do his watch duty at the bridge. And say that the bridge can be left unattended. I say that STCW and MSN tell the law about safe watchkeeping. He then was happy and says that he’s the one how wrote the MSN about safe watchkeeping. He wanted to hear about MSN, not the precise number. He tells me that the STCW95 book is not required on the bridge, MSN and MGN are …
• Chart work, I have give some explanations about chart symbols, I got I almost all right except a stupid “mS”, I cannot remember “m” for medium but I tell him that I can find the answer in 5011. Then a tide calculation on a tidal diamond in Ireland.
• Convert a 55°M compass bearing heading 220° M to True. I ask for the deviation card, he asks me why I need a deviation card. He was looking if I use 220° for the deviation card and why.
• Then collision situations with small ship models
  • Vessel on port bow how does not want to give way
  • Fishing fleet with extended gear in all directions
  • A vessel constrain by draft vessel on my port in a narrow channel. I go to her stern (port) then he add a cardinal mark on my port, so I reduce the speed, And he forces me to take all the way out.
• Radar exercises in fog
  • Port situation. He asks me who is the stand on vessel?
  • A WOA Triangle exercise very roughly just to see if I understand
  • An Overtaking or Head-on situation.
  • He ask about safe speed in restricted visibility
• Then he asks me about “Sound signals in fog of a power driven vessel underway and making way”, I say just “one long blast”. He was not happy with my answer so he asks me ALL the fog signals. He says that were not the correct answers. Then he proposes to change the subject. I was very stressed because even if I was confident of my answers, I start to doubt about everything. The rest of the exam was then very difficult for me and even if I try to be concentrate on the questions, I cannot stop thinking where I was wrong.
• So he asks me about 2 or 3 lights using a small black board, asks about Safe water mark and isolated danger lights characteristics.
• Then he pass true ALL the ALIA A buoys very quickly with figurines and then suddenly a ALIA B starboard mark (Got it right)
• Then he presents me an East Cardinal, “You heading west, you see that in front of you, what is your action”
• Then a discussion about COSWOP I talk about rest periods and fit for duty
• Who need a crew agreement?
• Then he comes back to the Fog signals where I finally said that I was sorry because I was sure that a power driven vessel is “1 long blast not more than every 2 minutes”, He says “Well done, your previous answers was correct but incomplete. So, I’m happy to say that you pass”. He also said he was happy to see that I didn’t fall in the collisions situations where usually the others fail.

So a quite stressful exam but I’m very happy of the training we did in the classroom. That definitely helps me in the collision, COLREGS and lights parts.

About the business and law, I was not sure when I revised about the depth of knowledge I needed. In my exam, as soon as he was happy with the fact I knew what the COSWOP is, he changes the subject.