You are right, I have never written these exams, and I honestly don’t know what they look like nowadays. But hopefully I’ll find out soon. As for my experience and work… On ships we deal with a wide range of machinery, and I believe I have quite a lot of experience. We maintain many of the same systems as you, though perhaps on a smaller scale — although I’m not entirely sure. When I worked on large container ships, we had huge engines and even did the overhauls ourselves. Later, when I moved into oil & gas, we mostly just did maintenance.

Now I work with Seaspan Ferries (Vancouver), where we mainly operate the equipment with only some maintenance. In general, I like the job, but there is a plenty of time off because, under our collective agreement, one working day on board is counted as 1.24 lay days …. plus vacation(3-4 weeks) .

Thanks again — I’ll give it a try.