500T Inland to GL

Maritime Topics Maritime Training & Licensing
1

I’ve searched to no avail, so apologies if this is floating out there somewhere I missed.

I have a 500T Master Inland license with near 15 years under my belt, but would like to start looking at GL jobs. In the checklists and CFRs for the <100 and 200T license it says 90 days are necessary to get a GL endorsement, but it says nothing for 500T. Should my license already be good for GL (that doesn’t sound right) and I just need to ask the NMC to pretty please write it into my MMC? Or is it 90 days time on the Great Lakes like the lesser tonnages?

2

I’m not familiar with the great lakes, but it appears to me that you have time and tonnage for 1600 Master.

3

Unfortunately all my time is on a 82T vessel, so I only qualify for Mate of 1600 at most. Though now that you mention it, 1600T Master also curiously lacks any mention of GL specific seatime. I was joking before about not needing actual time on GLs to get a >200T Master GL license, but now I’m not sure…

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4

There are a lot of folks here that can answer your questions. Just be patient. Might have to wait until traffic picks up on Monday. If I had to guess, I’d say that you are set.

Good luck.

5

Appreciate it! I’m in no rush.

My mid-tonnage Inland-only license tends to be weird; nobody bothers to get it since there aren’t any (maybe 1 or 2?) boats between 200-500T, so info on it tends to be sparse. Maybe I will end up just throwing some money into an Increase of Scope application to see what happens.

6

As far as I can see all inland licenses are for “great lakes and inland” except for the “master inland unlimited” ferry license. No great lakes time is required to get a “great lakes and inland” license.

If you somehow have a license for inland only just apply for a great lakes and inland license and you’ll almost certainly get it. (There may be a test depending on what you were tested for previously.)

7

I do indeed have an Inland-only license. When I upgraded from my original 100T Inland years ago, it never even occurred to me to request removal of the inland-only restriction since the lesser tonnages have a 90 day GL sea time requirement.

I’ll give it a shot. Worse they can say is no, right?

8

Which license requires 90 days on great lakes?

9

Pulling from the CFRs:

§ 11.455 Requirements for master of Great Lakes and inland self-propelled vessels of less than 100 GRT.
The minimum service required to qualify an applicant for an endorsement as master of Great Lakes and inland self-propelled vessels of less than 100 GRT is 1 year of total service in the deck department of self-propelled, sail, or auxiliary sail vessels. To obtain authority to serve on the Great Lakes, 3 months of the required service must have been on Great Lakes waters; otherwise the endorsement will be limited to the inland waters of the United States (excluding the Great Lakes).

200T has similar verbiage; 500 and 1600 do not, and AGT has Inland or GL sea time paths. It’s kinda all over the place.

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10

Ahh. I didn’t check all the way down the other day. You should be able to just apply for Master 500 ton GL&I and be fine. I’m surprised it didn’t happen automatically when you upgraded but maybe it’s a case of “you didn’t ask for it so they didn’t give it to you”.

11

Live chatted with the NMC. They essentially said- “Hey that’s a great question! Put in your application and see what an evaluator says.”

Not quite the concrete answer I was hoping for. Ah well. Submitted my application and we’ll see what happens.

12

Update- looks like I could indeed jump straight from Inland to GL with purely Inland time (albeit a LOT of it). Just making me test on Great Lakes Topics.

Speaking of which, I’ve been able to find a sample test for it but no study materials. Does anyone know where I can get the materials for this single module?