2017 STCW Operational to Management Upgrade

Currently a 3/M Unlimited with STCW II/I looking to move up from an Operational Level STCW to a Management Level STCW. I have been working on smaller tonnage vessels (under 500 GT) the last five years, so tonnage upgrades haven’t been much in the cards but finally made my way onto a 3000 GT vessel and was able to upgrade to 2/M Unlimited/1600 Master.

After recently submitting, I was told to take a new slough of classes (costing roughly $8,000 not including lodging and transportation) by the NMC to qualify for the 3000 GT Masters Management Level endorsement for my STCW.

This seems a little ludicrous, and I was curious if there were others in a similar position or other possible avenues of upgrading other than spending a $8,000 and a months worth of time.

See NVIC 10-14, https://www.uscg.mil/hq/cg5/nvic/pdf/2014/nvic-10-14(Ch1).pdf. All other “avenues” (i.e. grandfathering) closed on January 1, 2017.

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