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General Duties of the QMOW
General Duties
You will spend many hours standing watch as QMOW on the bridge.
Your duties are diverse and at times difficult; this is especially true
when you are operating with other ships. In this section of the chapter
we will begin to put together topics covered in other areas of the book.
The overall goal is to show practical application of what you have
learned and introduce you to a few new topics.
The general duties of the QMOW are:
Maintaining the DR plot and updating the ship’s position.
Recording entries in the Ship’s Deck Log.
Observing and reporting the weather.
Assisting the OOD.
Let’s take a look at what is required of the QMOW.
Fixing the
Ship’s Position
The ship’s position must be determined and plotted at regular intervals.
Normally, the navigator determines the fix interval. The interval
between fixes depends on the area in which the ship is operating. As
the situation changes the navigator may change the fix interval.
For example, if the ship is scheduled to make an rendezvous with
another ship in 4 hours, the fix interval may be changed from every hour
to every l/2 hour. The following table gives generally accepted fix
intervals for routine situations.
Situation
Obtain a fix
every
Open Ocean Navigating, no land within 50 nm.
hour
Open Ocean Navigating, land is within 50 nm, but not
closer that 25 nm.
l/2 hour
Coastal Navigating, land is within 25 nn, but not closer
that 10 nm.
15 minutes
Coastal Navigating, land is within 10 nm, but not closer
that 5 nm.
Restricted Water, piloting
10 minutes
3 minutes
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