The PG25360 Specific Purpose Certificate in Fishing Vessel Engineering Skills sits quietly but firmly on Ireland’s NFQ Level 5 ladder. It’s not theory for theory’s sake. The course turns raw deck hands into people who can read a gauge, feel a vibration through the sole of a boot, and know what it might mean before it becomes trouble. The programme runs under Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) standards, with guidance from the Department of Transport and the Code of Practice for smaller fishing vessels.
The idea is simple enough – teach safe, steady ways to keep an engine and hull alive out on the Irish Sea or west on the Atlantic grounds. In practice, that means time in workshops, short bursts of classroom talk, then back to real kit: pumps, filters, winch hydraulics, greasy bolts. The training feels close to life at sea – cramped corners, salt on tools, the diesel haze that hangs around your overalls by the end of the day.
Trainees learn to keep records too. It’s not just about spanners. Every logbook line, every torque figure, every note on a bilge alarm has weight. The ISM Code idea of say what you did, do what you say, threads through the lot. A missed line in a log can cause real bother later – a lost hour, maybe a lost trip. So it turned out, paperwork is as mucha part of an engineer’s rhythm as the hum of the shaft.
Altogether, the certificate builds a sort of quiet professionalism. It teaches judgement – when to fix, when to wait, when to call it. And it does that by pairing classroom learning with the sound of a live engine two decks down. To be fair, that’s how it sticks.
Continuous assessment covers about one-fifth of the total mark, though it feels bigger when you’re actually doing it. Everything must line up with BIM learning outcomes and HSA guidance, checked against those tidy observation sheets the instructor signs off.
The assessment bits usually come as:
short written briefs;
workshop observation logs;
reflection notes – what worked, what didn’t;
Checklists signed by the trainee and assessor.
Each sheet carries its own trace: who did it, when, under what permit. Names get coded out later for moderation. Tools are listed, and PPE is ticked off. It might look over-tidy, but in practice, it saves hassle when someone needs to prove a compressor was pressure-tested or a coupling was torqued right.
Evidence gets stacked in a folder – old-style or digital – so that anyone else could repeat the job safely from what’s written. A couple of photos, calibration cards, maybe a short video clip of the pressure gauge holding steady. The idea is repeatability. No guesswork.
Assessors check each piece against the outcome grid (LO 1–4). If something’s missing – say, no signature or PPE list – they flag it and you fix it. Reflection forms tie off each cycle. The loop runs like this: describe what happened, pick out the causes, and plan what to change next time. Sounds simple, but keeping that habit turns out to be the start of a good engineering culture.
A small slip might read:
“Coupling alignment rushed – two mm out on first try. Re-checked using dial indicator. Adjustment made. Next time – set datum earlier.”
That kind of short honesty carries more weight than a long paragraph copied from a book.
Brief linked straight to the learning outcomes.
Names anonymised before upload.
PPE use is described and signed off.
Photos/readings attached as proof.
Reflection page filled and dated.
Risk points noted with reference to HSA.
Witness or assessor signature added.
The paperwork can feel heavy, but every box has a reason. To be fair, when a job goes sideways, those records are what keep the crew covered. One loose line in a log can cost more than a new gasket.
The skills part weighs heavy — four-fifths of the grade — and rightly so. It’s where the classroom talk meets the noise, heat, and diesel fog of a live vessel. Each activity follows a loop that soon becomes habit: plan → do → observe → record → reflect → adapt.
The assessor watches the job unfold, checks the permits, and notes if you kept safe hands and tidy cables. Nothing fancy — just solid, traceable work. In practice, you learn to balance three things at once: safety, timing, and accuracy. Miss any one and the whole job feels off.
A fishing vessel is a small world of metal, motion, and salt. The hull’s displacement form pushes through the sea at around 9 knots on a calm day. Plates maybe 6–8 mm thick near the bilge, thicker at the keel. Frames spaced 500 mm apart carry the strain when the winch hauls a full net.
Corrosion never sleeps. We learn early to keep sacrificial anodes clean and check their wastage every few months. A dull-grey anode is good; a shiny one is dead. In the engine space, the cooling system runs two loops – low-temperature (LT) for the gear oil cooler, high-temperature (HT) for the cylinder jackets. When the raw-water strainer clogs with weed, the HT loop starts creeping up – first 70 °C, then 85. You spot it by instinct after a while.
Maintenance is a rhythm too. Oil change every 250 hours. Fuel filters drained daily when on a long trip. Shaft-seal inspection before each voyage, even if it means wriggling into the cramped tunnel with a torch and a sore back.
Stability keeps the talk going at every coffee break. Everyone’s seen a boat roll harder than it should after a fast haul. The free-surface effect in the fish hold – shifting liquid – changes everything. So it turned out, a quick check on the sounding pipe sometimes saves the day more than any fancy sensor.
Table 1 – Typical maintenance items for small Irish trawler
| System | Check / Interval | Evidence Logged |
|---|---|---|
| Main engine lubrication | 250 h oil change | Entry in engine log, oil receipt |
| Cooling water filters | Daily flush | Supervisor sign-off sheet |
| Anodes (keel cooler) | Monthly visual check | Photo + report form |
| Hydraulic winch hoses | 3-monthly inspection | Permit to work record |
By the end of the module, the habit of checking, noting, signing becomes muscle memory. To be fair, it’s dull some days — yet it’s what keeps a vessel upright and earning.
Safety runs through every part of the course like a live wire. Before any job starts, a risk assessment is filled, read, and signed. Hot work? Need a permit. Confined space? Ventilate and gas-test first. The old hands say, “no shortcut ever saved time after an injury,” and they’re right.
On a good day you still get fogging visors, slippery decks, a cable lying half a metre too close to the bilge sump. That’s real life. You pause, tidy, carry on. Lock-out/tag-out tags hang like Christmas ornaments on starter panels — small reminders not to power up while someone’s still in the shaft space.
Table 2 – Sample Task Safety Matrix
| Task | Main Hazard | Control Measure | Evidence of Control |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hot work on handrail | Fire, fumes | Hot-work permit, fire watch, CO₂ extinguisher | Permit #17-2025 signed by OOW |
| Bilge pump service | Confined space, oily surfaces | Ventilation, PPE (gloves, visor), buddy system | Gas test < 10 ppm before entry |
| Hydraulic hose replacement | Pressure burst | Depressurise, isolate, spill tray | Isolation tag on pump valve |
After each job, the safety sheet goes to the folder. Small slips — a glove not replaced, a visor lifted too soon — get noted, not hidden. In practice, that honesty keeps the training centre running straight with HSA audits and BIM standards.
Sometimes it’s the simple fixes: wiping a bit of diesel off a floor plate before someone skids, or closing the oily-rag bin lid so the night watch doesn’t wake to a smoke alarm. That’s how it becomes a habit.
Numbers start to make sense only when you can smell the diesel they describe. We use them daily — speed, power, fuel, trim. The formulae are basic but they decide money and safety.
A small trawler, say 350 kW main engine, burns about 220 L per day at 10 knots in calm water. Add wind and you might see 300 L. Learning to tie speed–distance–time together helps predict bunkering needs.
Table 3 – Sample Engineering Calculations
| Quantity | Symbol | Value | Unit | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Distance sailed | D | 180 | nm | Trip to Irish Sea grounds |
| Speed made good | V | 9 | kn | Average service speed |
| Time = D / V | T | 20 h | – | Estimate for fuel planning |
| Fuel rate | F | 12 L /h | – | Daily burn check |
| Total fuel | T × F | 240 L | – | Trip consumption approx. |
Trim and stability come with their own maths. We talk about GM, the metacentric height, even if the drawing on the board never feels real until the boat starts rolling. A higher GM means a stiff roll — quick, tiring. Too low GM, she wallows. A righting-arm sketch in the workbook helps fix it in the mind.
All the same, these sums turn into reflex. You glance at a fuel gauge, guess remaining hours, and then check the numbers later. When they match, it feels right.
Modern boats hide more electronics than folk realise. Under the deck plates sit small black boxes — ECUs, little control brains that watch every heartbeat of the engine. Oil pressure drops? It chirps an alarm. Coolant runs hot? Lights flash, and the bridge hears it within seconds.
During trainin,g we opened one up — not to tinker, just to see. A printed board dotted with resistors and a microchip no bigger than a fingernail. That chip runs loops faster than any human could blink. It pulls data from sensors — an RTD for temperature, a pressure transducer for lube oil, and a thermocouple near the exhaust. The signals travel through a CAN bus, linking displays and alarms into one chain.
In practice, you learn what the numbers mean, not just what they show. A pressure of 3 bar on the gauge means a steady bearing feed. A sudden drop to 1.5 bar tells you to throttle down and check the filter. To be fair, most of us trust the sound first — a low whine or a knock — then glance at the screen to prove it.
Every control circuit includes a fail-safe. If the sensor dies, the alarm defaults to on rather than off. That small detail has saved plenty of engines and probably a few lives. We also got a taste of integration — GPS, AIS, radar overlay. Nothing too deep, but enough to see how the ECU talks to the wheelhouse plotter. One cable out of place and the data freezes. So it turned out, neat wiring is not just tidy work — it’s survival.
The workshop smells of oil, hot steel, and cutting fluid. You learn quick to respect the machines. The lathe doesn’t forgive daydreaming. Every tool has a right speed and feed — too fast and the bit chatters, too slow and it burns.
Jobs rotate through basic kit: drilling, facing, thread-cutting, MIG welding, and grinding. Each task starts with a quick safety check — guards in place, gloves off near rotation, visor down for sparks. A few early burns teach the lesson better than any slide show.
Measurements matter more than chatter. A vernier caliper reads to 0.02 mm, a micrometer reads to 0.001 mm. You note the figures in a QA sheet, compare them to the tolerance. If the shaft pin is out by 0.1 mm, you re-cut or polish it till it fits sweet.
Table 4 – Workshop QA Checks
| Process | Tolerance | Tool Used | Inspector Sign |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lathe shaft turning | ±0.05 mm | Micrometer | J.O. |
| Drill flange holes | ±0.10 mm | Vernier | M.C. |
| Weld plate joint (MIG) | Visual + NDT spot check | Gauge + torch | R.L. |
Heat control during welding takes nerve. Too much and the plate warps; too little and the bead sits cold. You tack, step back, feel the warmth with a bare wrist — old habit. A quick clean, slag off, and the piece goes to inspection. Nothing fancy, just steady, honest work.
At first, drawings look like riddles. Lines, arrows, numbers — but once you crack the code, it’s like reading the vessel itself. Orthographic projections show three views: plan, elevation, and end. Section views slice through steel to reveal what hides inside — a pipe bend, a weld prep, a gasket seat.
Each title block gives the clues: scale 1:10, material mild steel, revision B. You learn to match part numbers to the Bill of Materials and then to the shelf in the store. In the real engine room, that means less guessing. No one wants to pull the wrong gasket set when the sea’s rising.
Symbols matter too — the tiny triangles for welds, GD&T signs for tolerance, arrows showing flow direction. Once, during placement, we used a drawing to trace a fuel line in a space barely wide enough to crawl through. The print said ‘Ø25 Cu-Ni pipe — route A.’ Sure enough, it ran exactly where marked, under the shaft guard, salt crystals glinting in the light. To be fair, that small success felt like winning something.
If you ever feel stuck halfway through your PG25360 portfolio — between torque logs, safety permits, and calibration cards — don’t panic. Our Irish academic team knows exactly how these modules run under BIM and Department of Transport rules. We quietly guide you on how to write your project in a way that sounds like you — hands-on, safety-minded, never robotic. Each page is checked for originality, accuracy, and that lived workshop feel so tutors recognise real learning. From risk forms to reflection notes, our assignment help services keep everything compliant, clean, and ready for Turnitin. You stay in control; we make sure it reads like the work of a genuine trainee who’s spent time around real engines and sea air.
Get Free Assignment Quotes
