captain work on ship
Life At Sea

A Day At Captains Office On Ship- Tells Fellow Captain

In this post you will get to know as what a captain of ship does in his everyday routine on ship. Quite exciting isn’t it?, lets know more about this. This article is about Captain Work On Ship.

Captain Work On Ship

Bellow is the captain work on ship.

A ”normal” day for a Master….

I get up around 0700 every morning – even if I have been up during the night for arrival/departure…

After a shower, I check the mailbox so see if there is anything really urgent.

At approx 0730 I go to the bridge to get my morning coffee and talk to Chief Officer about the world situation – especially centred around our vessel.

At 8 o’clock it is time for breakfast…

After breakfast, back to the paper mill – reading and answering the rest of the mails received in the morning, and distributing them to the relevant parties onboard.

Other Interesting Article you Can Read about being Sailor.

As we send / receive some 1600 mails every month, this is quite a job – especially as the Master is supposed to know what is in the mails.

Often mails contain attachments that have to be unpacked and dealt with. These attachments can be a great variety of things – amongst others company circulars, updates to SOPEP, NTVPR or any of the other abbreviations we have onboard.

When mails are dealt with – that is the morning mails – it is time to go chat with  3rd officer and get another cup of coffee.

After that there are either more mails to check (they are received 24/7 from various offices around the globe), or paperwork to do…

I normally do all the port papers myself. I don’t delegate this task to anyone – never have, never will.

The port papers can be a LOT of documents and stamps/signatures.

As I said in IMO – without the Ship’s Stamp, the shipping world would stop.

Some ports are fairly easy to prepare for – some are not so easy….
Here is a picture of the required paperwork for arrival Vostochny in Russia.

captain work on ship

That is one of the worst places paperwork wise I have been – no less than 300 pages – ALL signed and stamped.

That does take a few hours to prepare…

Somewhere along the way, the paper pushing was interrupted by lunch – and a few hours’ rest.

I normally take a nap in the afternoon – after having chatted with 2nd officer for a while to check if anything he has requires my attention.

Around 1530 I am on the bridge again for coffee and talks with Chief Officer again.

At 1730 supper is served.

In the evening, I enjoy watching a movie or 1-2 episodes of my favourite TV-series.

However, mails are often checked to see if something requires a response.

Around 2130 I usually visit the bridge for the last time (if we are in open sea with no serious traffic), and say good night to the duty personnel.

However, I usually monitor my VMS for the remainder of the evening while watching movies.

At around 0100 I normally call it a day – again if nothing special is to happen – and knock off.

And at 0700 it all starts over again….

Christian Rorbeck
Been with one of the elite shipping company for more than 30 years. Been Master since 2003. Most of my career has been on large container vessels –350 meters and above. Besides this, internationally involved in reducing paperwork. and married for 24 years with 3 children and Still happy :)

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