SIRE 2.0 CBT: what computer-based training can and cannot do before a vetting inspection

Search for SIRE 2.0 CBT and almost every result on the first page is someone selling a course. That tells you the demand is real. It does not tell you whether the thing being sold is the thing you need.

So it is worth saying plainly, before any of the buying advice: OCIMF does not require seafarers to hold a computer-based training certificate for SIRE 2.0, and no inspector will ask to see one at the gangway. That single sentence reframes the whole question — from which course do we have to buy to what are we actually trying to change on board, and is a course the way to change it.

None of this makes CBT worthless. It makes it a tool with one specific job, which is worth understanding before you sign for a fleet licence.

What OCIMF actually trains, and who it trains

The formal SIRE 2.0 training course that OCIMF describes is the one its own inspectors complete. In its programme FAQ, OCIMF explains that on the SIRE 2.0 training course inspectors learn about the human factors that help people succeed and the things that get in the way of the effective execution of critical tasks, along with non-technical skills — how to engage constructively with crews, how to gather and organise evidence.

That is an inspector curriculum. There is no equivalent crew curriculum that the programme mandates, accredits or checks.

What OCIMF does provide for the ship’s side is a set of short training videos, published on its own website, in a human-factors series and a technical series. OCIMF describes them as support for “inspectors, officers, crew, vetters and operators.”

This is the part that gets lost in a search results page full of vendors: the programme owner has already published its own explanation of the inspection, aimed partly at your crew, and it costs nothing. If you have just started looking at paid packages, watch those first. Not because a video series is a training programme — it is not — but because you cannot evaluate what a vendor is selling until you know what the inspection is trying to do.

What the inspection measures

The reason operators started looking for crew training at all is that SIRE 2.0 moved a meaningful part of the assessment away from the condition of the equipment.

OCIMF’s own framing is that SIRE 2.0 questions tend to have a hardware element, a process element or a human element. The report, it says, gives the recipient a better understanding of the safety culture on board as indicated by the overall nature — and not number — of observations across hardware, process and human factors.

That phrase deserves a second read, because it inverts a habit built over two decades of the legacy programme. Counting observations and driving the count down is no longer the game. A short report with three observations that all point at the same weakness in how a critical task is executed reads worse to an experienced vetter than a longer report of unrelated hardware items.

Where the human element is involved, OCIMF states that the inspector must provide supporting comments giving context for why the execution of a task exceeded expectation, was largely as expected, or was not as expected. Note what is being rated there. It is not knowledge. It is not whether the officer can recite a procedure. It is the execution of a task, described in the inspector’s own words, with context.

A certificate does not appear anywhere in that sentence.

Where CBT genuinely helps

Having said what it cannot do, here is the job it does well.

Getting a dispersed fleet to a shared starting point. If you run twelve ships with crews joining from four manning offices, the cheapest way to ensure everyone has heard the same explanation of what changed under SIRE 2.0 — why the interview is different, why the inspector asks to be shown rather than told — is a common module. Consistency across the fleet is a real problem and CBT is a reasonable answer to it.

Evidencing a system, not a moment. OCIMF publishes a Universal Interpretations document which, in its own description, gives information on advanced training and evaluating crew performance so that a potential charterer can better understand what a vessel operator has done to maintain and monitor standards on board. That framing matters commercially: the audience for your training system is not only the inspector on the day, it is the charterer reading the report afterwards and asking what you do systematically. A training record is weak evidence of individual competence and reasonable evidence of an operator’s system.

Covering the ground nobody has time for at sea. Regulatory background, the structure of the programme, why the questionnaire is compiled per vessel — this is classroom material. Doing it as CBT frees the time on board for the part that actually moves an observation, which is walking the ship.

Where it does not help, and why

The gap is specificity. An inspector’s human-factor observation is about a task carried out on your ship, with your procedures, your equipment layout and your permit forms. Generic training produces generic familiarity, and the moment the officer is asked to demonstrate rather than describe, generic familiarity shows.

There is also a failure mode worth naming, because it is common and it makes things worse. Crew who have been trained on likely question areas start answering the inspector the way they answered the module — reciting a rehearsed line rather than doing the task. An inspector trained to observe execution and gather evidence reads that immediately, and a rehearsed answer to a question about a critical task is a worse signal than an honest “let me show you, and I will check the procedure as we go.”

Questions to ask before you buy

Ask what the training produces, not what it covers. A syllabus list is easy to write.

• Does the module end in a task demonstrated on board and signed off by a senior officer, or does it end in a score?
• Can it be tied to our own procedures, checklists and equipment, or is every ship shown the same generic engine room?
• Does it address the human element the programme weights, or is it a hardware walkthrough with a quiz?
• What does it ask the Master and Chief Engineer to do afterwards? If the answer is nothing, it is an awareness product, not a training system.
• Is it maintained as the programme evolves, and who is accountable for that?
• Does the vendor claim to give you the question set? Treat that as a warning, not a selling point. The questionnaire is compiled per vessel by OCIMF’s own compiler; a package built around a leaked or reconstructed list is selling you the wrong preparation and telling you something about how it operates.

What to do in the weeks before the inspection

None of this is the part CBT can do for you, and it is the part that changes the report.

Walk the ship with the officers who will be asked. Not with a list of questions — with a list of critical tasks, and at each one ask the person responsible to show you, in the space where it actually happens, using the actual paperwork. You will find out very quickly which familiarity is real and which is a procedure that has only ever been read.

Where the answer is thin, the fix is rarely more training. It is usually a procedure that does not match how the job is really done, a checklist that was written ashore for a different ship, or equipment that has been worked around for so long that the workaround has become the method. Those are the things an inspector observing execution will find, and no module will paper over them.

Our SIRE 2.0 inspection preparation checklist is built for exactly that walk — organised by operational area across hardware, process and human factors, so the conversation on board follows the same three dimensions the report will. It runs in your browser, it contains no part of the question set, and it costs nothing.

The short version

CBT is a reasonable way to give a fleet a common baseline and to evidence that you run a training system. It is not a requirement, it is not a certificate anyone checks, and it is not a substitute for an officer who can carry out a critical task on their own ship without reading from a card.

Start with what OCIMF already publishes. Then spend the money on the gap that is left — which, on most ships, turns out to be a smaller and more specific gap than the one the sales page describes.