1st AE pathway for new career prospects

They tried making it a requirement to qualify for STCW to get the national license but they caved to the pressure of public comments that were against that.

As I read stcw courses doesn’t seems to be so difficult job to be done , is five courses about a thousand each and most of them
are web courses .
On the other hand OICEW needs some months of assessments and trainings , looks for me that is more time consuming project and need more financial resources in order to be accomplished.?

Figure $15,000-20,000 and a few months to get the required OICEW courses. None of the courses will be hard for you, it will just drive you crazy you are wasting time/money. It’s bullshit, but you’ll make the money back quickly. Perhaps you can figure someway to deduct the expenses on your taxes? Ask an accountant.

Can you clarify what you mean? I heard that in the past it was possible to get an STCW endorsement without the equivalent national, when the STCW sea time requirements were lower (for example, I think 2eng STCW sea time requirements are different than 1ae). But, I think new guidance or rules came out that one must first hold the national equivalent license before getting the stcw endorsement (example: must qualify for 1ae before being granted 2eng STCW).

Do you mean they tried making it that if one met the national license requirements, one would be granted the STCW endorsement? Isn’t that how it was before Jan 1, 2017? Why would public comment want more classes, training, and bullshit?

I don’t know if that was ever the case, maybe @jdcavo does.

In the 2014 rulemaking they tried to make it so that in order to get the national license you needed to be fully qualified for the STCW equivalent (including all the classes and assessments). That way, for example, it wouldn’t be possible to get Master 1,600 GRT Oceans without the STCW II/2 Master less than 3,000 GT endorsement.

My understanding of the desired end state wasn’t for STCW to be a prerequisite, but instead to unify the dual national and international licenses/ratings into a single STCW compliant track. Which, in my opinion, would have eliminated 90% of the idiocy associated with our current licensing system. This would also have included eliminating GRT measurement, but I also see that as a positive.

Makes sense, on the surface. For engineers, merging the two wouldn’t be that difficult, as there really isn’t much difference in material/experience required.

But for mates, seems like forcing inland/river tug guys that never lose sight of land to do cel nav, etc, wouldn’t fly. Unless they created some sort of STCW inland only endorsement???

Regardless, it is still ridiculous that the USCG can’t grant a USA STCW endorsement to a foreign STCW endorsement holder either through reciprocity or evaluation of the foreign issuing authority’s requirements. The USCG does a similar task when evaluating Navy experience.

Wasn’t STCW supposed to set an international standard? What point is a standard if everybody has different interpretations of how to follow it?

With one exception, that’s never been possible. See 46 CFR 11.201(a):
An applicant for any STCW endorsement must hold the appropriate national endorsement unless otherwise specified.

The one exception is STCW Electro-Technical Officer, see 46 CFR 11.335(d):
An applicant who does not hold any other national or STCW endorsement will be issued, upon completion of the requirements in this section, the ETO endorsement without any corresponding national endorsement.

The original proposal for what led to the STCW rulemaking in 2013 did make meeting STCW a requirement for near coastal and oceans deck licenses for 200 GRT or more. For engineers, the original proposal was for two types of engine license, with or without STCW. See 74 FR 59354. As noted, that approach was abandoned and the current scheme was proposed in a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking.

In the very early days of implementing STCW95, circa 1998. if you were renewing a deck license and did not meet the then required STCW “gap-closing” for BST and BRM, your license was limited to 200 GRT regardless of what it had been. That policy was very short-lived.

See above. Yes. But you could only get the license if you met the requirements for STCW (courses, assessments, etc.)

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