Paid PractitionerCertificate

Marine Engineering & Main Engines

The machinery side of vessel performance: why the two-stroke diesel owns deep-sea trade, how its operating envelope and fuel appetite are set for life at the newbuild table, what the emissions rulebook does to it, and how the plant is kept efficient, compliant and running, from bunker quality to batteries to blackout prevention, and finally how to read the engine's own fuel signal and tell its drift from the hull's.

Lessons
12
Quiz questions
98
Exercises
3 (15 min)
Calculators
2
Time
About 113 min
Price
€189+ VAT
Certificate
Graded final exam, then a PDF certificate with a number anyone can verify
Who it's for
Technical superintendents, fleet engineers, performance analysts: anyone who signs off on the machine that burns most of the budget, and has to defend a scrubber case, a retrofit study or a maintenance decision with more than a gut feeling.
Assumed knowledge
None formally. Our course Vessel Performance in Practice is the natural companion: it measures what the hull costs; this course covers the machine paying the bill. The two reference each other but stand alone.
Taught by

Christos Papandreou

CEO & Founder, Blue Autonomy

  • Naval architect and marine engineer, National Technical University of Athens
  • 15 years of experience in fleet performance and operational data
  • Chief Scientific Officer, NEMO, previously DeepSea Technologies, StormGeo, Athenian Sea Carriers, PwC

Part of the Ship Technology Foundations specialisation.

What you will be able to do

By the end of the course. Each outcome names the lessons that deliver it, and the final exam samples every one of them.

  1. Explain the thermodynamic, mechanical and economic logic that made the low-speed two-stroke diesel the deep-sea standard (efficiency near 50%, direct drive, heavy-fuel tolerance) and what that victory costs. Lesson 1
  2. Read an engine's operating envelope (load diagram, propeller curves, MCR/SMCR/NCR, margins, barred speed ranges) and explain how matching and derating decisions taken at the newbuild table echo through twenty-five years of service. Lesson 2
  3. Interpret specific fuel consumption as a load-dependent curve rather than a catalogue number, correct a measured SFOC to the shop test's reference conditions, judge whether a rise is drift or tolerance, and read exhaust temperatures, scavenge pressure and turbocharger speed at the same load to name which cause is moving the grams. Lessons 3, 11
  4. Read a bunker specification and fuel analysis (grades, viscosity, density, sulphur, cat fines, water, stability, and what the 2024 generation of the marine fuel standard changed) and explain what onboard treatment must do and what happens when it fails. Lesson 4
  5. Compare the emissions-compliance routes as engineering choices with running costs: SCR versus EGR for NOx Tier III, compliant fuel versus open/closed/hybrid-loop scrubbers for SOx, Otto- versus Diesel-cycle dual-fuel concepts with their methane slip, and the real scope and economics of converting an existing engine to methanol, ammonia or LNG. Lessons 5, 6, 7, 8
  6. Assign a fuel loss to the engine or to the hull and propeller using measured shaft power as the boundary, read each side's signature, and price what a turbine wash recovers and what a fuel-valve exchange costs and recovers, in tonnes, dollars, carbon and allowances, with a payback and a break-even gram for the exchange. Lesson 12
  7. Judge where batteries and hybrid power genuinely earn their keep aboard (peak shaving, spinning reserve, port operations), and assemble the reliability disciplines (blackout prevention, maintenance strategy versus condition monitoring, alarm hygiene, heavy-weather operating discipline) that keep the plant running. Lessons 9, 10

Every technical budget has one line that dwarfs the rest, and behind it sits one machine. The main engine burns the fuel, sets the emissions exposure, dictates the dry-dock scope and decides, more than any other system on board, whether a ship earns money or explains itself.

This course is the machinery half of vessel performance, taught for the people who manage it rather than stand watch on it. It runs in the order the decisions do: why the low-speed two-stroke won deep-sea trade and what that victory costs; the operating envelope fixed at the newbuild table and felt for twenty-five years; specific fuel consumption as a curve rather than a brochure number; what actually arrives in the bunker tank and what the treatment plant must do about it. Then the rulebook: NOx and SOx abatement as engineering choices with running costs, dual-fuel engines and the methane question, retrofitting for methanol, ammonia and LNG, and where batteries genuinely earn their keep. Then the quiet disciplines, maintenance strategy, alarm hygiene, blackout prevention, that decide whether any of the above works at 03:00 in a seaway. It closes on the engine as a source of fuel drift: corrected SFOC trended against the engine's own shop test, with exhaust temperatures, scavenge pressure and turbocharger speed as the companions that name the cause; and measured shaft power as the hinge that says whether a fuel rise belongs to the engine or to the hull, and which repair buys it back.

The opening lesson is free to read as a sample. By the end you should be able to read a load diagram, an SFOC curve, a bunker analysis and the engine's own performance sheet the way you read a balance sheet: as claims to be tested, with money attached.

What the course covers

  1. Why the Two-Stroke Rules Deep-Sea 8 min
  2. The Operating Envelope: Load Diagrams, Margins and Matching 9 min
  3. Specific Fuel Consumption: The Curve Behind the Catalogue Number 13 min + exercise
  4. Fuel Quality: What Actually Arrives in the Bunker Tank 9 min
  5. NOx Abatement: Tiers, SCR and EGR 8 min
  6. SOx Abatement: Compliant Fuel or Scrubber 13 min + exercise
  7. Dual-Fuel Engines and the Methane Question 9 min
  8. Retrofitting for New Fuels: What a Conversion Really Involves 8 min
  9. Batteries and Hybrid Power: The Right Size of Electricity 7 min
  10. Operating for Reliability: The Quiet Disciplines 8 min
  11. Reading the Fuel Signal: Corrected SFOC and Its Companions 8 min
  12. Engine Drift or Hull Drift: The Hinge at the Shaft 13 min + exercise

€189 + VAT

€234.36 including 24% VAT, which is what an individual in the EU pays. Outside the EU no VAT is added. A company in another EU country pays the net price once its VAT number is confirmed in VIES, the EU's register; a company in Greece pays the 24%. Checkout shows the total before you pay.

Paid once, for one person, for as long as the Academy runs: every lesson, the 2 Excel workbooks, the final examination and the certificate. Part of the Ship Technology Foundations specialisation, which costs less than its courses bought one at a time.

Buying online needs JavaScript switched on in your browser. Otherwise write to info@blueautonomy.gr and we arrange access.

All prices · Refunds: 7 days, unless you have started

Common questions

What exactly is included?

12 lessons (about 113 minutes in total), 98 quiz questions with explained answers, and 2 working Excel calculators: SFOC & load-point calculator, Scrubber payback calculator.

How much does it cost?

€189 plus VAT, paid once: €234.36 with 24% VAT, which is what an individual in the EU pays; outside the EU no VAT is added, and a company in another EU country with a VAT number valid in VIES pays the net price. That buys every lesson, the 2 Excel workbooks, the final examination and the certificate, for one person, for as long as the Academy runs. The course is also part of the Ship Technology Foundations specialisation, which costs less than its courses bought one at a time. Everything else is on the pricing page.

Is there work to do, or is it only reading?

3 lessons carry a required exercise, about 15 minutes of hands-on work in total. You download that lesson's Excel workbook, follow the numbered steps against the numbers the lesson states, then change one input and watch the answer move. The exercises are where the method stops being something you have read and becomes something you can run; the stated course time includes them.

Do I get a certificate?

Yes. The course ends with a graded final exam, marked on our server rather than in your browser: you see your score and which questions you got wrong, but not the answers, because the questions are drawn from a pool. Pass it and you get a PDF certificate in your name, with a certificate number on it.

That number is the point. Anyone you show the certificate to can check it themselves at academy.blueautonomy.gr/verify, with no account and no email to us: the page states the name, the course and the date we issued it. A certificate nobody can verify is a decorated PDF, and we would rather issue one that stands up.

Can I preview the course?

Yes: the first lesson, Why the Two-Stroke Rules Deep-Sea, is free to read in full. It is a real lesson, not a trailer: same depth, same quiz.

Do I need prior knowledge?

None formally. Our course Vessel Performance in Practice is the natural companion: it measures what the hull costs; this course covers the machine paying the bill. The two reference each other but stand alone.