What a First Mate Actually Does Before Departure
The thirty minutes before the engine starts is where good first mates earn it.
Most people think the first mate's job starts when the boat leaves the dock.
It doesn't.
It starts thirty to ninety minutes earlier — in the engine room, on the deck, at the chart table, on the radio — and what happens in that window determines how the rest of the day goes. The trips that feel effortless are the ones with strong pre-departure work behind them. The trips that go sideways usually went sideways before anyone touched the throttle.
This is the article on what good first mates actually do before the engine starts. None of it is glamorous. All of it matters.
The walkthrough with the captain
The first thing a good first mate does on departure morning is walk the boat with the captain. Not a chat. A working walkthrough.
This is where the two of you confirm the plan — the route, the weather forecast, the expected time at each waypoint, the contingency anchorages if conditions change. It's where the captain shares anything they're concerned about ahead of the trip, and where the first mate flags anything they've noticed since the last run. A line that frayed during the last docking. A fender that needs to be repositioned. A line locker latch that's been sticking. None of these things will sink the boat. All of them will become problems if they aren't fixed now.
A good walkthrough also covers the engine room. Strainers, fluid levels, belt condition, blower function, bilge condition. The captain runs the technical inspection — that's the captain's responsibility — but a first mate who's been through it five or six times can run it themselves and just have the captain confirm. By the end of the first season working a boat together, most first mates can handle the engine room check independently and just report findings.
If you're new to the role and your captain isn't walking you through this, ask. Most captains will be glad you did. The ones who aren't glad — that's worth a different conversation.
Lines and fenders
The deck work happens during or right after the walkthrough.
Dock lines need to be inspected and prepared the way you'll need them at the next port — not the way they're currently set for the home dock. If you're going to a floating dock, the bow and stern lines are run differently than they are for a fixed dock with pilings. If you're going to a slip you've never been in before, you'll want extra line on hand for whatever the configuration turns out to be. Spring lines need to be coiled and accessible, not buried under everything else in the locker. (For more on why spring lines deserve more respect than they get, that's a separate piece in the works.)
Fenders need to be checked, inflated if necessary, and pre-positioned. The mistake a lot of new first mates make is leaving fenders in the locker until the boat is approaching the dock. By then, the first mate is also trying to read the dock, signal the captain, and handle the bow line. Pre-positioning the fenders during the walkthrough takes thirty seconds and pays off every time.
The order in which lines come off the dock on departure matters too. Most first mates learn this the hard way, by releasing the wrong line first and watching the boat swing in a direction the captain didn't intend. The correct order depends on the wind, the current, the slip configuration, and the captain's plan — which is another reason the walkthrough matters. The first mate should know the order before the captain says "release."
The safety gear inventory
USCG-required gear is the easy part. Life jackets accessible for everyone on board. Throwable PFD on deck. Fire extinguishers charged and in date. Visual distress signals (flares) in date. Sound-producing device working. Current navigation charts on the boat. All of this is on the captain's responsibility list, but a first mate who can do the inventory and report status is a first mate the captain trusts.
The less-discussed part of safety gear: the stuff you'd actually need in an emergency that isn't USCG-required. A working first-aid kit with current medications. A waterproof flashlight in a known location. Spare batteries. Backup VHF if the primary fails. A bucket. (You'd be surprised how often the answer to a non-fatal problem is "a bucket.")
Run through both lists during pre-departure, not while underway. Underway is when you need the gear, not when you find out it's missing.
Filing the float plan
A float plan is a document — usually filed with someone reliable on shore — that tells them where the boat is going, what the route is, when you expect to arrive, and what to do if you don't.
The first mate is usually the one who files it. Not because the captain can't, but because the captain has the helm work to do, and the float plan is exactly the kind of pre-departure task that benefits from being someone's specific responsibility. If the first mate owns it, it gets done. If everyone owns it, it gets forgotten.
The shape of a basic float plan: vessel name and registration, vessel description (color, length, type), souls on board (everyone's name), departure port and time, destination and expected arrival time, planned route, contact information for everyone on board, and instructions for who to call and what to tell them if the boat doesn't check in on time.
File it with a spouse, a neighbor, a marina staff person, or a Coast Guard auxiliary float plan service. Send a quick confirmation when you arrive. That's the whole protocol.
For more on what filing a float plan actually buys you — particularly in worst-case scenarios — the First Mate's Emergency Playbook covers it in detail.
The radio check
Marine radio doesn't fail often. When it does, it usually fails between trips, not during them — meaning the failure is sitting there when you turn the radio on for the first time on departure morning, and you don't know about it until you need it.
A pre-departure radio check takes about ninety seconds. Power on. Check Channel 16 monitoring. Make a short test transmission on a working channel — call another vessel you can see, or do a radio check call to the Coast Guard on a working channel (not 16). Confirm reception, confirm transmission, sign off.
If the radio doesn't work, you find out at the dock, when you can do something about it. If you don't check, you find out when you actually need it. Different conversations.
A first mate fluent in VHF radio operation handles this in under two minutes and reports the result to the captain like reporting the weather. That fluency is one of the named skills in First Mate Coaching for exactly this reason.
Provisioning awareness
This one isn't typically the first mate's responsibility to handle, but it is the first mate's responsibility to know about.
Fuel level. Water tank level. Holding tank capacity. Food and drinking water for the duration of the planned trip plus a reasonable margin. Ice. Sunscreen. Spare clothes if the weather might turn. The captain may have handled all of this, or the captain may have assumed someone else handled it. The first mate's job is to ask the questions before departure and confirm the answers.
You don't have to do the provisioning. You do have to know the answer when the captain asks halfway through the day whether there's enough fuel to make the next port.
The questions every first mate should ask before departure
After enough seasons working with first mates of every experience level, I've watched the same five questions emerge as the ones that separate the dependable from the developing.
*What's the plan if the weather changes? * Asked early, before departure. Captain should have a Plan B and the first mate should know what it is.
Where are we anchoring or docking tonight, and what's the backup if it's full? Specific to multi-day or destination trips. Not knowing is fine; not having a backup isn't.
Is there anything on the boat you're concerned about right now? This invites the captain to share concerns the first mate might not have noticed. Mechanical, weather-related, navigational, doesn't matter. Putting the question out there is what matters.
Anything you need me to be ready for that I might not be expecting? This is the question that captures the unspoken stuff — the tight channel ahead, the bridge that doesn't always open on schedule, the marina that's been hard to dock at all season.
If you go down today, do I know what to do? Most first mates flinch the first time they ask this. Every captain I've worked with has been grateful for it. The answer is the kind of conversation that protects both of you.
That last question is the bridge to the First Mate's Emergency Playbook. If you've read this far and haven't read that piece, it's the natural next read.
Closing
The pre-departure work is unglamorous. Nobody at the marina is watching it. The day's first dramatic moments — the docking maneuver leaving the slip, the first crossing of the breakwater, the wave from the captain of the boat next door — are the ones that get the attention.
But by the time those moments happen, the day has already been mostly determined. The boat is either ready or it isn't. The first mate either knows the plan or doesn't. The radio either works or it doesn't.
The work that determines whether the day goes well is the work nobody sees.
If you want help building out the full first mate skill set — the pre-departure work, the on-water vocabulary, the emergency protocols — the First Mate Coaching program is where we do it. It's the only program of its kind on the Great Lakes, and pre-departure work is one of the things it covers most carefully.
