Day in the Life: Deck Cadet on a Deep-Sea Vessel

Nobody tells you before your first contract that a cadet is technically never off duty. You are there to learn, and learning does not stop when the watch ends. The record book needs filling, the chart work needs checking, the bosun has three things to show you before dinner, and the Chief Officer wants your stability calculation on his desk before you turn in. Welcome aboard.

The Working Day

07:45 — You join the Chief Officer on the 08–12 watch. As a cadet you do not have the conn — that responsibility belongs to the certificated OOW — but you are expected to function as a working bridge team member. You take the navigational log entry, plot the 08:00 position on the chart (paper, even though ECDIS is primary), and update the voyage distance run.

08:30 — The Chief Officer hands you a set of parallel rulers and the tide tables and asks you to confirm the tidal stream for the pilot boarding ground at tomorrow's port arrival. This is not a test. This is your job. You work through it, give the answer, and he checks it without making you feel small about the calculation error on the second approach. You redo it. The answer is different. He nods.

09:15 — ARPA exercise. The CO sets up a scenario on the radar — a crossing vessel at 8 miles, bearing drawing left — and asks you to plot the CPA and TCPA and propose the correct COLREGS action. You have done this at college. On the bridge of a real ship in a real sea state, with the motion of the vessel and the CO watching, it is different. You get it right.

12:00 — Watch over. You eat and then go forward with the bosun for deck maintenance rounds. As a deck cadet your training covers seamanship as well as navigation, and the bosun takes this seriously. Today: wire splicing on the aft mooring reel, checking the condition of the anchor chain on the port windlass, and an introduction to the fixed CO2 fire suppression system in the paint locker. You write up all three in your training record book before dinner.

14:00 — Record book work. Your company's cadetship uses a structured training record book (TRB) with competencies mapped to the STCW Manila Amendments. Each task has to be signed off by a certificated officer who has observed you do it. You are behind on stability assessments. You bring your workbook to the Second Officer and ask if you can work through two assessments this afternoon.

16:00 — Cargo watch in port — the vessel arrived in Antwerp at 14:00. You are assigned to monitor the loading of a cargo of steel coils on the port side, confirm the tally against the cargo plan, and check the stowage factor. The stevedore supervisor is Polish, the tally clerk is Belgian, and neither has much patience for cadets with clipboards. You learn quickly how to be useful without being in the way.

19:00 — Dinner and study. Your college has set an assignment on meteorology due at the end of this contract. You write for an hour, then check in with home by video call — the ship's internet works well in port. At sea it is slower but still usable.

21:00 — Night rounds with the OOW. This is one of the less glamorous parts of cadetship: walking every deck of the ship in the dark, checking fire detection panels, confirming gangway watch is in place, logging anything out of the ordinary. Tonight you find a mooring rope that has slipped its cleat on the aft breast line. You retake it correctly and log it. Small thing. Right call.

The Reality

Cadetship is demanding in a way that the recruitment brochures do not fully convey. You are simultaneously a student, a junior crew member, and an adult living and working in a professional environment far from home, often for the first time. Some contracts place you on vessels with officers who invest in your training. Others place you on vessels where you are mostly useful for routine tasks. The quality of your training depends significantly on who you sail with.

The record book never stops. Every certificated watchkeeping officer will tell you that the worst part of their cadetship was the TRB. Do it anyway. Do it promptly. It is the evidence that your training happened.

What Makes It Worth It

The first time you bring a vessel into a berth — even as assistant helmsman, even with the pilot on the bridge — and the lines go ashore correctly, and the master nods at you, and you know that you contributed something real to that manoeuvre, it makes the record book worth filling. The career you are building is exceptional. The cadetship is the price of admission.