Ship's officers' duties

[Arun Vajpey]

No, it was the Chief Officer. The P.M. watches were set as follows:

2P.M. to 6P.M.: Chief Officer Wilde
6P.M. to 10P.M.: Second Officer Lightoller
10P.M. to 2A.M.: First Officer Murdoch

That's right, sorry my bad. I was thinking of the fact that Lightoller was relieved by Murdoch at 10 pm and had a 'senior moment'.

Hm, which part of the disaster are you referring to? If you are talking about the fact that the ship collided with the iceberg at all, you must remember that it was not the poor man's fault.

No it was not Boxhall's fault but his calculated position of the ship at the time of impact and therefore of the wreck was a bit off the mark.

 

[Aly Jones]

I’m just wondering but what did the officer's on the ship even do?

Run the ship- Responsible of the safety of the ship, passengers and crew. Be a great job for it’s time.

 

[Kareen Healey]

Hi everyone,

I wonder if each officer of the same rank had the same schedule, regardless of the company, the ship or the seniority of the individual ? To be a bit clearer, let's say for instance that we have the TITANIC and the EMPRESS OF IRELAND and that it is 12 : 00 p.m. We know that Murdoch was the senior officer in duty when the TITANIC left Southampton. Does it mean that on board of the EMPRESS OF IRELAND, from 12:00 to 04:00, it was Edward Jones, the First Officer who was in charge ? Could officers change shifts ?

 

[Steven Christian]

Hi everyone,

I wonder if each officer of the same rank had the same schedule, regardless of the company, the ship or the seniority of the individual ? To be a bit clearer, let's say for instance that we have the TITANIC and the EMPRESS OF IRELAND and that it is 12 : 00 p.m. We know that Murdoch was the senior officer in duty when the TITANIC left Southampton. Does it mean that on board of the EMPRESS OF IRELAND, from 12:00 to 04:00, it was Edward Jones, the First Officer who was in charge ? Could officers change shifts ?

That's a good question. As Mr Currie pointed out earlier I guess a lot of it would depend on the ships you were comparing. As in ships had different numbers of bridge crew and probably different duties. Also what regulations were they supposed to follow? The ones (regs) from whatever countries flags they were flying? I'm sure under certain circumstances they could change shifts...sick call...ect ect. Mr Currie or some of the other merchant marines can give you better answer as my only experience was in the military. We changed watches a lot in port but never at sea that I recall. Jim stated that WSL followed the RN (royal navy) watch schedule. How many other companies did that I don't know. Again good question, which raised even more.