Watchkeeping

Making sure the ship, its personnel and cargo are safe is a primary duty of the Officer of the Watch. If a problem occurs at any time, the OOW is required to contact the captain. The OOW is responsible for checking the equipment to make sure that it is functioning correctly, investigating fire alarms and monitoring bad weather, which can produce limited visibility.

Operations of the Ship

The Officer of the Watch is responsible for making sure the vessel is seaworthy. This includes making sure all doors and hatches are watertight and secured. It is the OOW's responsibility to know maritime laws and ensure that the crew obeys them. The OOW must also be familiar with, and make sure the vessel is in compliance with, laws pertaining to pollution and how to handle and dispose of garbage.

Emergency Response

The OOW is required to know how to handle emergencies, which requires a knowledge of different emergency codes and signals. Crew and environmental emergencies include man overboard, collision avoidance, distress messaging and marine pollution. Knowing how to react to different types of fires, equipment malfunctions, search-and-rescue situations and how to use emergency equipment are also required.

8.Boat Safety Drills

The "Big Three" in boat drills are the "man overboard" drills, fire drills and "abandon ship" drills. Having a regular discussion with family members about the procedures and equipment used in each circumstance may lead to comments like, "not again," but when the words become a matter of rote and your crew moves through the right actions even while half-asleep, your boat's a safer place.

Abandon Ship

The "abandon ship" drill familiarizes passengers and crew with the procedures and equipment essential to successfully abandoning a sinking vessel. The key points of the drill are donning the life jacket, reporting to a central point for a head count, and doing what the vessel's master tells you to do. All passengers should be briefed on the proper use and operation of the boat's survival equipment, particularly if a life raft or other survival craft is aboard.

Fire

Being aboard a boat gives people a sense of isolation that sometimes is welcome. The flip side of that pleasant isolation is a fire at sea. No storm or hurricane brings home the realization of just how alone human beings are at sea -- or on a lake, or even a river -- the way a fire aboard does. You can't call 911; you have to fight it yourself, win or lose. This means the fire drill should teach where the fire-fighting equipment is, and how to use it.

Man Overboard

People don't fall overboard only on stormy nights, regardless of what literature and movies show. People fall overboard at high noon on days when the water is mirror-smooth. That's why the U.S. Coast Guard says everyone should wear a life jacket on the water, and why all states have regulations regarding life-jacket wear by children. The "man overboard" drill allows the crew to practice how to turn the vessel to avoid hitting the person in the water with the hull or propellers; how to return to the location of the man overboard incident, and how to recover the victim from the water without falling in themselves.