Day in the life of an Officer on the Africa Mercy

Jared Chacon

Hi Deck Department,



A question I frequently get whilst recruiting Officers to serve on board the Africa Mercy is "What do the officers do if the vessel isn't underway?" 



I would love to hear your first-hand answer to this question! How does serving on the Africa Mercy compare to serving on some of the other types of vessels you've worked on?



Thank you for the help!



Jared Chacon

Technical Recruiter

John Borrow

Hi Jared, good question !

There is still much to be done, and the officers are assigned their usual responsibilities of FFA, LSA, Navigation, Safety, Training etc.

Keeping the life saving and fire fighting equipmnent in good condition takes a fair amount of work each week, as she is not a new ship.

Training & drills are done on an almost daily basis so there is a fair amount of work done there by the training officer.

The safety oficer also has the task of keeping the vessel safe, and runs the safety comittee meetings and is responsible to action items & any corrective measures that arise.

On top of that, we have stores & containers arriving regularly, diving operations every 2 weeks, and SMS work permits the duty officers need to be aware of. The deck officer is on duty every 3rd day or so, and those days are generally busy.

Adding to the mix is cyclone season and the rainy season, so we need to be especially aware of the local weather conditions.

Hope that helps.

John 

C/O Africa Mercy

 

Robin Bakare

Thank you so much as I find this very informative.