Responding to Orders and Information

Minimising Misunderstanding

Minimising Misunderstanding

How should we communicate to avoid or at least reduce misunderstandings? This is the idea behind learning Maritime English and developing and practising skills in continuously receiving and giving instructions. This first lesson will take off in daily work and also bring up some common misconceptions.

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Basic Words and Phrases

Basic Words and Phrases

This lesson will focus on learning important words we use onboard the ship. You need to understand and know how to use many of these words to be able to handle both everyday situations and potential emergencies.

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Communicating Using Maritime English

Communicating Using Maritime English

The purpose of this lesson is to give examples of how to (and how not to) communicate during the daily work onboard.

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Safety Communication

Safety Communication

In this final lesson, the focus is on ships with passengers onboard. We will provide a general picture of escape routines, general announcements, and how to communicate during an emergency.

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Step 1 of 216 minutes read

Responding to Orders and Information

Responding to Orders and Information.mp3

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As mentioned in the previous lesson, Standard Marine Communication Phrases influence Maritime English vocabulary. Some features of the SMCP are specifically aimed at making radio communication as well as routine and special-purpose messages onboard more effective. Of course, this goes for communication ship to ship, or ship to station as well. 

Over the radio, it is very important to signal if a piece of information is not immediately available, not heard or if there is any uncertainty. If information is not available to you at the moment, you may have to ask around or wait for something to be able to answer. Say: “Stand by”, to communicate this with the receiver. If you know when to add that information as well, for example, “stand by for one hour”. When you don’t have information to give, “no information” is the correct way to reply. 

If you do not properly catch a message, say “say again” or “repeat”. This should be confirmed by using “I say again” or “I repeat”.

To establish a clear transmission, the verb “read” should be used instead of “hear” or “listen”, and the indication of the signal strength will serve to identify the clarity of transmission. For example, to the question “How do you read me?”, an answer will be “I read you fair with signal strength three” to signify that the signal received is “fairly good”.

To signal readiness for receiving a message, use:  ”I am ready to receive your message” or ”I am not ready to receive your message”.

To signal readiness for receiving a message, use: ”I am ready to receive your message” or ”I am not ready to receive your message”. Photo: Jörgen Språng


Avoidance of Certain Phrases

Avoidance of Synonyms

Words should be used consistently throughout so that, for instance, the vessel has been agreed to be used instead of the ship to refer to the ship herself.

Avoiding synonyms means agreeing upon the use of one word instead of many similar describing the same noun or phenomenon. When everybody uses the term “stairs”, no one has to ponder on the meaning of synonyms like “steps,” “escalator,” “companionway,” “staircase,” and so on. Elaborate synonyms are always accompanied by the risk of the receiver not knowing this particular word.

Synonyms Example

“No vessel in the vicinity” is the correct phrase to be transmitted when communicating that there are no other ships around.

Avoid Contracted Forms

Auxiliary verbs and not-forms should not be contracted. This helps preserve pronunciation clarity and enhance audibility. It is recommended to reduce the use of auxiliary verbs in general.

Auxiliary verbs are “help verbs” and we are used to having them in sentences for nuance, to be polite, and to follow a tone or mode in everyday communication. However, in Maritime communication, these words tend to diffuse a message. This is connected to avoiding conditionals, which you can read more about further on in this course.

Avoiding contracted auxiliary verbs means pronouncing every word – instead of saying “she’ll enter the fairway in five minutes”, say “she will enter the fairway in five minutes”. To completely avoid auxiliary verbs, the example would be: ”She is entering the fairway in five minutes".

The same goes for:

  • He’ll → he will
  • She didn’t → she did not
  • It’s → it is

Avoid Conditionals

Avoid using modal verbs such as the conditionals “can”, "may", "might", "should" and "could". In official communications, they should be avoided, but be careful with them in any situation where clear communication is intended.

Here follows an example of conditionals to avoid:

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Always be careful when using modal verbs as the conditionals, in any situation where clear communication is intended. Combining this advice with message markers helps keep vital communication to the point and easy to understand:

Do not say: "May I enter the fairway?" or “Can I enter the fairway?”

Say: "Question. Do I have permission to enter the fairway?"

Answering to the question above, do not say: "You may enter the fairway."

Say: "Answer. You have permission to enter the fairway."

“Can” and “may” are tricky, they can describe the possibility as well as the capability of doing something. A recipient can mistakingly decode your reply as you may do a certain task or manoeuvre when you are trying to communicate that you have understood and will follow the instruction.

Do not say: "I might enter the fairway soon."
Say: "Intention. I will enter the fairway."

Do not say: "You should anchor in anchorage B 3."
Say: "Advice. Anchor in anchorage B 3."

Do not say: "You could be running into danger."
Say: "Warning. You are running into danger."

When an official Instruction or Advice is given, and you respond in the affirmative, say:

"I will ... " - followed by the instruction or advice in full.

To answer in the negative, respond:

"I will not ... " - followed by the instruction or advice in full.


Provide Fully Worded Answers

Replies should not be restricted to a simple “yes” or “no” but fully developed containing all the question items.

There will only be two available answers to the question “Is the turning effect of the propeller very strong?”. Either:

“Yes, the turning effect of the propeller is very strong” or

“No, the turning effect of the propeller is not very strong”

Furthermore, provide fully worded responses to instructions, pieces of advice, or orders – this makes sure messages are acknowledged at all times.

If an instruction, an order, or a piece of advice is transmitted, the receiving station will make sure that the information has been received and understood by repeating the main wording preceded by I will or I will not.

The straight-forward order of “Stop engines until the pilot boat is clear” will be expected to get the following reply: “I will stop engines until the pilot boat is clear”.

Providing fully worded answers is a way to secure that a message is received as intended. It is called closed-loop communication. For a fully closed loop, the sender should even confirm that the receiver has understood correctly:

Port: “Stop engines until the pilot boat is clear”

Ship: “I will stop engines until the pilot boat is clear”.

Port: “Well received”

Provide One Phrase for One Event

To enable closed-loop communication, one phrase for one event is important!

When asking or giving orders, one phrase for one event is a golden rule. If you are responding to orders or questions, this can be eased in a similar way to avoid misunderstandings. If you respond “yes” to a phrase containing more than one event, it is not clear what you respond affirmatively. Responses to orders and answers to questions of special importance (both in external and onboard communication) should be given according to the form of the phrases above.

During warnings, emergencies, or in generally pressured situations, avoid using (or use sparingly) function words such as the a/an, is/are

Simple Warning Example

“Danger of icing in the area around …” will be used to notify that “there is a danger of icing in the area around …”


Example: Bunkering Communication

Bunkering, the supplying of fuel, is naturally a situation where extra safety measures need to be taken. Thus, clear communication regarding checklists and procedures is vital – it can be a matter of life and death. Here, safe communication avoiding misunderstandings as well as the knowledge of proper words comes to great use. The same goes for message markers and closed-loop communication.

Let’s listen to some examples based on the pre-bunkering checklist.

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