The engine overheating alarm is on. What should I check first?
The honest answer is: it depends on your engine, and that’s exactly the point. The Purser answers from your boat’s own manuals, not a generic checklist.
Asked this very question on Shimbiri (a Volvo D3), it went straight to the Volvo D3 manual: intake-manifold temperature as a cause of overheating on page 71, fuel and charge-air checks on pages 53 and 55, and it pointed to the engine’s Fault Handling section on page 62 for the fault-message procedure.
It then named the first physical checks any overheating alarm warrants (coolant level and circulation, the raw-water intake, and the thermostat) and, tellingly, said plainly where its manual excerpts ran out rather than guessing. That’s the difference: a cited answer from your documents, honest about its own edges.
The Purser retrieves from the boat’s indexed manuals (Docling extraction + contextual retrieval), cites the exact pages, and flags when the answer needs the full manual rather than the excerpt it holds. The capture below is the real, unedited response.
General information for Australian operators, current as of May 2026. Rules change and recreational rules vary by state. Always confirm against the source(s) linked above (your AMSA, Australian Sailing or state maritime authority). This is not legal advice.