The short answer: every crew member must take part in one abandon ship drill and one fire drill every month, and a crew change can pull the next drill forward to within 24 hours of leaving port. The longer answer depends on what kind of vessel you are, and it comes from SOLAS Chapter III, Regulation 19. Your flag state and your management company have the final word for your specific vessel; this article covers the baseline that applies to almost every commercial vessel, including most professional yachts.
The monthly baseline
- Every crew member must participate in at least one abandon ship drill and one fire drill every month. That is per person, not per vessel: a deckhand who was on leave for last month's drill has not met the requirement just because the vessel ran one.
- Drills must be conducted, as far as practicable, as if there were an actual emergency. A muster where everyone stands at their station in shorts and nobody touches the equipment is a head count, not a drill.
- Each drill must be recorded in the official log book.
The 24-hour rule after a crew change
If more than 25% of the crew have not taken part in drills on board that particular vessel in the previous month, drills must be held within 24 hours of leaving port. Note the wording: it is not about how experienced the new crew are, it is about whether they have drilled on your vessel. A rotation that swaps out a third of the crew resets the clock, however senior the joiners.
For yachts this is the rule that bites most often, because crew changes cluster around yard periods and season changes, exactly when drill discipline is easiest to lose.
Passenger ships drill weekly
On passenger ships, including charter yachts carrying 12 or more passengers, an abandon ship drill and fire drill are held weekly, and passengers must be mustered within 24 hours of embarkation. For a charter yacht this means a muster at the start of every charter: a few minutes of head count and briefing, logged.
What your flag adds
Flag administrations (REG, MCA, CIM, MI and others) publish their own interpretations, and the Large Yacht Code and Passenger Yacht Code layer detail on top for superyachts: additional drill types such as man overboard, rescue boat and damage control, expectations about rotating scenarios, and stricter record keeping. If your SMS names a drill schedule, the SMS is the standard an auditor holds you to, even where it exceeds SOLAS.
A cadence that satisfies all of it
Most professionally run yachts settle into a rhythm like this:
- Monthly: fire drill and abandon ship drill, every crew member accounted for, scenario varied month to month
- Start of every charter: passenger muster within 24 hours of embarkation
- After a crew change over 25%: drills within 24 hours of leaving port
- Through the year: the other scenarios the vessel trains for, man overboard, flooding, medical, on a rotation the SMS sets out
How The Muster App helps: every session run on the iPad is logged with its date, scenario, drill or real flag, attendance and recording. The Muster Sessions page filtered by scenario shows the gap since the last fire drill or abandon ship drill at a glance, which is exactly the question the monthly rule asks. Because attendance is recorded per person, the "every crew member, every month" test is answerable too, not just "the vessel ran one".
For what the drills must contain and how they are recorded, see SOLAS and ISM drill requirements and what the ISM Code expects of drill records.