Engine room watch

An engine room watch is the period a duty engineer keeps charge of the machinery space, monitoring propulsion, auxiliaries, and alarms. STCW Code Chapter VIII sets the engineering watchkeeping principles, fitness for duty, and the rest-hour limits of at least 10 hours in any 24 and 77 hours in any seven days. On a continuously manned ship the watch is physically present in the control room or on the plates. On a ship with the UMS or E0 notation the space runs periodically unattended, with the duty engineer on call and covered by the machinery alarm and dead-man alarm systems. Watch handover follows a fixed checklist of machinery status and standing orders.