Potential RFA Officers - I'm happy to share my 2019 experience of interview process, BRNC, etc.

[Klanky67]

A Bridge Watchkeeping Certificate is what the deck officers qualify in.
A 24 hour day is split into 6 watches to be covered by 3 Deck Officers. It's split into 4 hour duration:-
Midnight to 4am,
4am to 8am,
8am to Noon,
Noon to 4pm,
4pm to 8pm.
8pm to midnight.

As a Cadet you will be given 2 of these watches ie midnight to 4am and the Noon to 4pm watch or one of the 2 other pairs.
You will double up with a 3rd mate (possibly a 2nd mate) and two SG1A's (Able Seaman). Whilst on watch you learn the basics of working on the bridge - watchkeeping, weather reporting, use of WECDIS (Radars and Navigation) as well as qualifying for your steering ticket. This is a set number of hours steering the ship in hand (not on auto pilot) under varying conditions including pilotage passages. Cadets are normally moved around the sets of watches in order to experience the different evolutions carried out at certain times of the day.
As well as these 8 hour working commitments you are expected to attend various briefings, exercises, drills, training outside these hours.
Be prepared for some very long days and nights!

 

[LandScrubber]

If you are considering joining the RFA as an officer, and given how much information I've seen which was either out of date, contradictory, or just plain wrong, I thought it would be useful to share my successful experience (which is current as of August 2019). If this helps one person I will have achieved my aim, but hopefully this will help quite a few more, so if you've got a question, ask away and I'll do my best to answer it.

You mind running through your time at BRNC; for example what did you cover over your 10 weeks there?

 

[Klanky67]

You mind running through your time at BRNC; for example what did you cover over your 10 weeks there?

The 10 weeks covers huge swathes of information on leadership, the RFA history and present, traditions, etc.
To save him a bit of time and fingering, why don’t you tell him what you’ve found out about it after all of your research and trawling through these forums and other websites? Impress with your hard earned knowledge then ask him to fill in the gaps?????

 

[LandScrubber]

The 10 weeks covers huge swathes of information on leadership, the RFA history and present, traditions, etc.
To save him a bit of time and fingering, why don’t you tell him what you’ve found out about it after all of your research and trawling through these forums and other websites?

Sorry for the late reply, got caught up with work; that's exactly why I was asking Klanky, I'm not clued up on any of the training during BRNC. However I would like to know about the first week of BRNC?

 

[Klanky67]

You mind running through your time at BRNC; for example what did you cover over your 10 weeks there?

Sorry I thought your request was for info on the whole 10 weeks as per your question above, not for the first week only. That's a more manageable amount to disseminate!

 

[LandScrubber]

Dead thread @Scribes86 ? Edit; not trying to be rude, just eager to hear your scoop!