We have been informed that we will be undergoing a Coast Guard evaluation of the crew coming up on November 7th. We need to be ready to provide answers to any questions we might be asked by the Coast Guard personnel who will be coming aboard and for whom we will perform a drill. These are things we are supposed to have learned during training.

We need to know things like how many lifeboats are there? 26. How many people can each one accommodate? 150. How many liferafts are there? 68, and they can hold 35 people each. Did I ask you how many they can hold? No sir! I'm an idiot, sir! How many lines does a liferaft have and what are their names? 5 sir! Left and right bowsing to steady the raft when boarding, a container line to fasten the container to the ship, the painter, to ? and the quick release line to open up the raft.

We need to know where the fire extinguisher nearest our assigned emergency station is, and what type it is, A, B, or C (in my case, a B-type – dry powder – located in the casino). What an EDD is (emergency descending device) and a SART (Search and Rescue Radar Transponder) and an EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) and how many there are on the ship, 18, 2 and 2 respectively.

(Thanks for listening – typing this into the blog will help me remember it all. I find the hardest part to be remembering all the various acronyms).

We're all supposed to have a basic general knowledge of all the safety and emergency systems, but we don't have to know everything in detail. For example, I've watched lifeboats being launched, but I haven't actually been on the team that launches them (yet). In fact, we each have only one emergency instruction, and no instruction is particularly difficult to handle. Mine is easy – show up at emergency station B9 and line up the passengers for boarding into life boats. I'm one of four on the B9 team, and I'm not the leader this time, so it's straightforward.

One thing that concerns me is the lack of clarity in the posted instructions for, say, launching a liferaft. If one or more of the launching team failed to show, somebody taking over, like me perhaps, would have to refer to the instructions posted on the bulkhead (wall) near the rafts, or on the rafts themselves. And some of the instructions on the rafts and those on the bulkhead do not agree with each other. As an erstwhile technical writer, this bothers me. I can just see it now:

“You there! Wind out the davut so we can fasten the drop line hook!”

“But it says here, 'Fasten drop line hook, THEN wind out the davut', sir!”

“Nope. You wind out the davut first, before you fasten the hook! Get it together, seaman!”

“With all due respect, sir (gurgle, gurgle)...”

Also, the translation of many of the instructions from German to English leaves much to be desired. And I know, having translated a lot of German technical material so don't argue with me!

I mentioned that my emergency job is easy, but sometimes you get problem guests – those who feel the whole idea of the drill, putting on lifejackets, and lining up like school children is completely unnecessary or even silly. Some of them refuse to put on the life jacket, especially on hot days, and even get belligerent when you insist. “Look! I KNOW how to put on a life jacket! Take my word for it! Idiot...”

Oh well. What can you do? Official policy is NEVER to argue with a cone (er, guest). But we're also told to be firm during the drill. Certainly in a real emergency we would stand for no bullshit.

I'll let you know what happens on November the 7th during the Coast Guard evaluation. They do this only once a year, and I missed it last time, so it should be interesting.