National Maritime Center
US Coast Guard
Address
Martinsburg, Wva Date
Dear Sirs,
John Doe mariners # / SS# has been employedby this company from date to date…John has worked as Master aboard our vessels. He has served aboard various tugboats upon Inland and Coastal Waters and beyond the boundary line (per treaty with Canada) for the # of days listed below.
TUG USCG DOC # GRT HP Inland # of days Coastal # of days
John is subject to our company Name…random drug testing program which meets the criteria of Title 46 CFR 16.230. For at least 90 of the last 185 days john doe has not failed or refused to participate in a chemical test for dangerous drugs (strange sentance but its there)
In accordance with 46 cfr 10.227 john has completed ongoing participation in training and drills during his employment with …company name
In accordance with 46 cfr 10.227 and STCW section A-VI/1-3.John Doe has served as master while sailing outside the boundary lines, under the legal authority of his active STCW certificate and has continued ongoing training while on board our tugs.
I always have my mate sign these letters as witness / and I sign his as witness
It seems crazy to collect these letters as some have mentions …a two week hitch…what’s the point. We collect them every year or two, or when it’s time for a renewal or upgrade.
Most companies will get these back to you in a week or so. I make my own copies and send them in when I need the sea time. I have even produced them myself and carried them in for a signature. Jump up on the desk if you must but there is no reason for a company not to gladly sign this. The CG has excepted this format of letter as recent as Sept/Oct 2014. If they have doubt they will call the company for verification. Any way I am west coast and alaska…never had a problem.
My company is on top of the sea time letter game, the only caveat being you need to give them a reasonable amount of time before you need it. Adding 7 more individual items of paperwork on crew change day every 2 weeks is the hard way to go. If your company isn’t working with you then I can see using the 718a.
I say if getting a sea time letter and other things are that much of a hassle at a particular company, they better be paying you big money or some other huge bonus factor of working there. I have no time for that kind of nonsense working for a shitty company. Usually the person writing a letter at a particular place will fine-tune their letter with time and feedback from the NMC to streamline the process, at that point they have a good template to add your personal info and days to. Usually in modern times the payroll system will spit out a record to help write the letter so its not them digging through logs etc.
....John Doe mariners # / SS# has been employed by this company from date to date....John has worked as Master aboard our vessels. He has served aboard various tugboats upon Inland and Coastal Waters and beyond the boundary line (per treaty with Canada) for the # of days listed below.[/QUOTE]
This letter is not ideal, and may cause problems. Ideally they will list the exact on each vessel, not the total time they were employed by the company and the total days ion that period. This format does not lend itself to determining recency (i.e. you might have worked a total of 600 days over 5 years, but that doesn’t tell us how many you have in the last 3 years. Also, if the various vessels are on different sides of a critical tonnage threshold, for example all time over 100 GRT for an unlimited license, the letter doesn’t allow a determination if they meet the sea time/tonnage requirements. Same also for routes. Too many letters just say “western rivers, inland, and near coastal routes” and doesn’t break down how much they have on each.
Finally, use standard position titles, e.g. not 2nd or 3rd Captain) or at least explain how the weird title you are using correlates to the the ones in the CFR service requirements for the endorsement they are going for.
Updated - - -
[QUOTE=tugsailor;150701]Does anyone have seatime letter phraseology for combined tonnage of the tug and barge ?
Has anyone sought seatime credit for combined tonnage? What was it like dealing with the NMC on this?[/QUOTE]
The letter had better be specific, i.e. breaking down the exact tonnage at all times, not just something vague and general like “…served on the towing vessel [I]Handy Boy[/I] towing barges with aggregate tonnages of up to 54,321 GRT for the period from 1 Jan 1972 to 31 Dec 2014.”
Can you go ahead and post your final draft as an example on here? I am looking for the ending wording with appropriate CFR references also for my upcoming renewal. Thanks.