Your examiner asks: "What is the difference between intact stability and damage stability, and why does your vessel need both sets of criteria?"

A. Intact stability is assessed only at the design stage and is never relevant to the vessel's actual loaded condition during a voyage.

B. Intact and damage stability are two names for the same calculation, differing only in which classification society performed it.

C. Damage stability criteria apply only to passenger ships; cargo ships need only satisfy intact stability requirements.

D. Intact stability addresses the vessel's righting ability and seakeeping in its normal, undamaged condition (GZ curve, GM, area under the curve criteria) across its range of loading conditions. Damage stability separately assesses the vessel's ability to survive flooding of one or more compartments following assumed damage (collision/grounding), requiring sufficient residual buoyancy and stability after flooding — a vessel can comfortably satisfy intact criteria yet still fail to meet damage stability requirements if its subdivision is inadequate, which is why both are assessed and both have separate, distinct criteria.

A. Open adjacent compartments immediately to inspect for similar flooding, before reporting the initial finding.

B. Attempt to fully diagnose and resolve the source of ingress alone before reporting, to avoid raising a false alarm.

C. No report is necessary unless the water level visibly rises during the time you happen to be observing it.

D. Report it immediately to the bridge/Master — do not wait to "confirm" the problem alone — note the apparent quantity/rate of ingress if safely observable, avoid taking any action (e.g. opening further compartments to investigate) that could inadvertently worsen flooding or compromise watertight integrity elsewhere, and stand by for instructions while keeping the area under observation if it is safe to do so.

A. Damage stability standards scale with vessel size, type and the consequence of loss — larger vessels and those carrying passengers represent a greater potential loss of life and asset value if lost, and (generally) have more internal volume/length available to provide additional subdivision, so regulations require them to survive a more demanding flooding scenario (e.g. two or more compartments) rather than the less demanding standard that might apply to a smaller vessel.

B. Vessel size has no bearing on the number of compartments a damage stability standard requires the vessel to survive; the same fixed number applies to every ship regardless of size or passenger status.

C. Smaller vessels are required to survive more simultaneously flooded compartments than larger ones, since they have less reserve buoyancy.

D. Passenger-carrying status has no bearing on damage stability standards; only cargo-carrying capacity is relevant.