A new crew member is the moment the safety system is weakest: they do not yet know their station, their duties, or where anything is. Two regulations exist for exactly that moment, and both bite before or shortly after the joiner's first sailing. Your flag and your SMS carry the detail for your vessel; this is the baseline.
ISM 6.3: familiar with their duties before they matter
Section 6.3 of the ISM Code requires the company to ensure that personnel who are new, or transferred to a new role touching safety or the environment, are given proper familiarisation with their duties, and that instructions which are essential before sailing are identified, documented and given. Unpacked, that is three obligations:
- Decide what a joiner must know before the vessel sails: their muster station, emergency duties, alarm signals, escape routes, safety equipment for their role
- Document it, usually as a familiarisation checklist in the SMS
- Deliver and record it, per person, before it is needed, and be able to show an auditor the signed record
SOLAS III/19: the two-week rule
SOLAS adds a clock: on-board training in the use of the vessel's life-saving appliances must be given as soon as possible, and no later than two weeks after a crew member joins. Alongside it sits the drill-participation rule covered in how often drills must be run: a large crew change pulls the next drills forward to within 24 hours of leaving port, so on a busy changeover the familiarisation, the training and the drill often land in the same week. That is by design; the regulations are converging on the same risk.
What an auditor asks
- The familiarisation checklist for the most recent joiner, signed and dated
- Whether it happened before sailing, not at some point afterwards
- Whether the joiner appears on the muster list with a station and duties, in a language they understand
- Evidence of their participation in a drill within the required window
How The Muster App helps: the moment a joiner is added to the crew in the admin panel they take their place in the muster list, and their station, duties and alarm signals for every emergency are on their own phone in Muster Mate from their first hour aboard, which is the familiarisation problem at its root: not whether the briefing happened, but whether any of it stuck. Muster ranks mean a rotation position like Deckhand B carries its duties to whoever holds it. Their drill participation is then recorded per session, so "has the new stewardess actually drilled on this vessel" is a filter on the Muster Sessions page, not an interview. The signed familiarisation checklist itself stays in your SMS; the app is what makes its contents true.