How to become Ship Engineer in 2024

Ship Engineer Supervise and coordinate activities of crew engaged in operating and maintaining engines, boilers, deck machinery, and electrical, sanitary, and refrigeration equipment aboard ship.

Ship Engineer is Also Know as

In different settings, Ship Engineer is titled as

  • Barge Engineer
  • Engineer
  • Ferry Engineer
  • Harbor Engineer
  • Port Engineer
  • Towboat Engineer
  • Tug Boat Engineer
  • Tugboat Engineer

Education and Training of Ship Engineer

Ship Engineer is categorized in Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Ship Engineer

Previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is required for these occupations. For example, an electrician must have completed three or four years of apprenticeship or several years of vocational training, and often must have passed a licensing exam, in order to perform the job.

Education Required for Ship Engineer

Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree.

Degrees Related to Ship Engineer

Training Required for Ship Engineer

Employees in these occupations usually need one or two years of training involving both on-the-job experience and informal training with experienced workers. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Ship Engineer in different industries are

What Do Ship Engineer do?

  • Monitor the availability, use, or condition of lifesaving equipment or pollution preventatives to ensure that international regulations are followed.
  • Monitor engine, machinery, or equipment indicators when vessels are underway, and report abnormalities to appropriate shipboard staff.
  • Maintain electrical power, heating, ventilation, refrigeration, water, or sewerage systems.
  • Record orders for changes in ship speed or direction, and note gauge readings or test data, such as revolutions per minute or voltage output, in engineering logs or bellbooks.
  • Perform or participate in emergency drills, as required.
  • Maintain complete records of engineering department activities, including machine operations.
  • Start engines to propel ships, and regulate engines and power transmissions to control speeds of ships, according to directions from captains or bridge computers.
  • Monitor and test operations of engines or other equipment so that malfunctions and their causes can be identified.
  • Maintain or repair engines, electric motors, pumps, winches, or other mechanical or electrical equipment, or assist other crew members with maintenance or repair duties.
  • Perform general marine vessel maintenance or repair work, such as repairing leaks, finishing interiors, refueling, or maintaining decks.
  • Operate or maintain off-loading liquid pumps or valves.
  • Clean engine parts and keep engine rooms clean.
  • Supervise marine engine technicians engaged in the maintenance or repair of mechanical or electrical marine vessels, and inspect their work to ensure that it is performed properly.
  • Order and receive engine room stores, such as oil or spare parts, maintain inventories, and record usage of supplies.
  • Act as a liaison between a ship's captain and shore personnel to ensure that schedules and budgets are maintained and that the ship is operated safely and efficiently.
  • Install engine controls, propeller shafts, or propellers.
  • Fabricate engine replacement parts, such as valves, stay rods, or bolts, using metalworking machinery.

Qualities of Good Ship Engineer

  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.

Tools Used by Ship Engineer

  • Adjustable hacksaws
  • Aligning punches
  • Allen wrench sets
  • Aviation snips
  • Ball peen hammers
  • Ballast pumps
  • Bell-faced claw hammers
  • Bilge water pumps
  • Boilers
  • Bonney wrenches
  • Box wrenches
  • Brazers
  • Bridge gauges
  • Bristol wrenches
  • Cape chisels
  • Carpenter's mallets
  • Center punch sets
  • Circle snips
  • Clutch tip screwdrivers
  • Combination jaw pliers
  • Combination wrenches
  • Condensers
  • Cooling towers
  • Cross peen hammers
  • Cross peen sledge hammers
  • Curved needle nosed pliers
  • Diagonal cutting pliers
  • Dial gauges
  • Diamond point chisels
  • Diesel ship engines
  • Digital depth gauges
  • Digital micrometers
  • Digital multimeters
  • Disk sanders
  • Double cut files
  • Double faced sledge hammers
  • Drift punches
  • Duck bill pliers
  • Electric drills
  • Feedwater heating equipment
  • Feeler gauges
  • File brushes
  • Fire suppression systems
  • Firefighting pumps
  • First aid kits
  • Flaring tools
  • Flat cold chisels
  • Fuel pumps
  • Gas cutters
  • Gas powered generators
  • Gas turbine engines
  • Gear pullers
  • Half round chisels
  • Hawks bill snips
  • Hollow shank gasket punches
  • Lathes
  • Long nose pliers
  • Long-handled inspection mirrors
  • Oily water separation systems
  • Open end wrenches
  • Phillips head screwdrivers
  • Pin punches
  • Plain faced claw hammers
  • Plastic hammers
  • Pneumatic chipping hammers
  • Portable electric sanders
  • Portable grinders
  • Portable jigsaws
  • Powered shears
  • Prick punches
  • Ratchet handles
  • Rawhide mallets
  • Riveters
  • Riveting hammers
  • Rotary impact scalers
  • Round nose chisels
  • Rubber mallets
  • Safety goggles
  • Safety wire pliers
  • Scraping tools
  • Sewage treatment systems
  • Short nose pliers
  • Side cutting pliers
  • Single cut files
  • Slip joint pliers
  • Socket extensions
  • Socket wrench sets
  • Solid hacksaws
  • Speed handles
  • Spintite wrenches
  • Standard screwdrivers
  • Straight hand snips
  • Straight peen hammers
  • Strap wrenches
  • Tap and die sets
  • Thermal cutters
  • Torque wrenches
  • Trojan snips
  • Tube cutters
  • Union nut wrenches
  • Vernier calipers
  • Water pump pliers
  • Welders
  • Welding gloves
  • Welding masks
  • Wood mallets
  • Wrench pliers

Technology Skills required for Ship Engineer

  • Apple macOS
  • Computer aided dispatch software
  • Computerized maintenance management system CMMS
  • Customer relationship management CRM software
  • Damen DAMOS
  • Electronic data interchange EDI software
  • Enterprise resource planning ERP software
  • Kongsberg Maritime K-LOG Electronic Logbooks
  • Marine Software Marine Planned Maintenance
  • Marine Software Marine Safety Manager
  • Microsoft Access
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Office software
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Microsoft Project
  • Microsoft Word
  • Oracle Database
  • Salesforce software
  • SAP software
  • Wonderware software
  • Word processing software