Documentation and information

Surveyors and ship's officers should discuss documentation details and the location and state of all compartments. The instruction pages of the stability information book and calibration tables should be studied and a check made of the tank capacities with the capacity plan. It should be remembered that the port and starboard tanks may not be the same and consequently have separate calibration tables.

The base for measurement of vertical heights, the reference point for longitudinal measurements, the units and the sign conventions used in the tables must all be verified. The units used in the correction tables should also be carefully noted because there is sometimes a mixture of units and sign conventions contained within the same documentation. The whole survey should be conducted using the units of the ship and the final result changed to a suitable unit, if necessary. When feet and inches are the standard unit, convert to feet and decimals of a foot for the convenience of a calculator.

The full sounding depths of tanks, the summer draught and freeboard and the record of recent tank soundings should be noted.

If a bunker survey is not to be carried out, the chief, engineers bunker figures (fuel oil, diesel oil and lubrication oil) are required, also the daily port consumption quantities. Should any bunker or stores be delivered during the stay then the delivery notes must be sighted for the additional quantities to be included in the final survey. The draught survey is only interested in changes in the bunkers on board, that is consumption and deliveries.

The position of the anchors should be checked, should any alterations be proposed during the stay then the weight of the anchors and cables should be determined.