Can any maritime schools actually provide students with all the training and assessments required for AS-D in its entirety?

Maritime Topics Maritime Training & Licensing
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Can any maritime schools actually provide students with all the training and assessments required for AS-D in its entirety? Have any of you been able to take an AS-D course at a school?

To be clear, I’m asking whether there is a course at any maritime school that allows a student to complete all of the required training and assessments necessary to get STCW Able Seafarer-Deck (AS-D) added to the student’s MMC, assuming the student already has the necessary sea service.

For further clarity, this is about National AB mariners who already have National Lifeboatman and STCW BST, RFPNW, and PSC, and want to obtain/upgrade STCW AS-D too.

How do you complete AS-D and get it on your MMC if maritime schools cannot get you completely signed off on all the AS-D requirements during the practical assessments they offer?

For most mariner courses, schools offer practical assessments. My understanding is that you don’t necessarily have to complete the practical assessments through the school if you can instead get an eligible deck officer to sign off that you performed the required practical skills and demonstrated adequate knowledge aboard a vessel at your actual employer/job. When taking a mariner course at a school, I always elect to perform the practical assessments offered by the school. I realize some mariners have employers that help them with all this stuff, especially in the unions, but my situation is not like that.

From what I understand, STCW Able Seafarer-Deck is no different in that basic principle. AS-D also has practical assessments.

However, unlike RFPNW, PSC, and other courses, I’ve been told that schools offering AS-D usually don’t have the equipment and/or a large enough school’s vessel to complete all of the required AS-D assessments. allegedly. I believe some of the requirements that create this difficulty are some of the assessments in NVIC 14-14.

Is that accurate? If so, how does an independent mariner actually finish AS-D if his employer isn’t providing the assessments or a Qualified Assessor (maybe even if his employer is cooperate and benevolent, his employer’s vessel is also too small?).

Are there any maritime schools where you can complete all of the remaining AS-D training and assessments, without needing additional shipboard sign-offs afterward?

AS-D supposedly is one of the final barriers for a newer deck mariner trying to qualify for many of the really good-paying jobs, so I’m trying to understand the practical path to actually getting the endorsement added to an MMC.

Thank you!

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Maybe I’m old school, but if you’ve spent enough time on deck to qualify as AB, then you’ve probably already done most of the assessments. Why not go to the mate and have him sign off what you’ve done. E.g., if you’ve prepped and painted something, that is two or more assessments right there. No need to pay a trainer to watch you do that.

I can’t answer your specific question about any particular course. I just did all mine on the ship and the took the test at the REC.

Edit: no test for AS-deck. That was for national endorsement only.

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Call - Clatsop Community College in Astoria Oregon or San Jacinto in Houston Texas or MPT in Ft. Lauderdale Fl. depending on where you live.

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I did my assessments on ship in two months and got paid to do them. It took longer for the Coast Guard to issue the new MMC than to complete the assessments. Another advantage was it was real world equipment doing actual work and not some training environment simulator.

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Two of the places you just mentioned do NOT allow mariners to complete AS-D training practical assesments. But thank you for the suggestion, I will research furtber

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Thats great. I’m happy for you. Unfortunately not possible for everyone

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Clatsop / MERTS has a training ship on the Columbia River. I would call them if you haven’t already.

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If it’s not possible for you, then chances are you don’t need the upgrade. What ships/employer/union are you working on that won’t upgrade you? If you’re not in that job, you probably don’t have the relevant seatime.

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You can become an AS-D even if all your seatime is on a dinghy, provided you were underway for at least 4 hours per day.

In terms of qualifying seatime, the rules were much more complicated to become eligible for AS-D, before the USCG loosened restrictions in 2024

I’m pretty certain you are very misinformed, but I’ve been very wrong before, so no promises

As a new mariner with little experience, I admittedly am not entitled to any opinions, and mine should be taken with a grain of salt, but it seems bizarre and arbitrary that dinghy-tonnage-level experience makes you eligible for AS-D, but conversely supposedly/allegedly, some or all of the NVIC 14-14 practical assesments for AS-D may be required to be performed on a vessel 250 GRT or larger — But I’m fearful I have some big misconceptions. Please correct me

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I could be, I make no guarantees, and I don’t know your situation or background. My point was relevant seatime. You may be able to cobble together qualifying seatime on small vessels, but if you want to work on larger vessels, go get a job as a deckhand on a larger vessel, whether it’s through Sealift Command, SIU, or one of the few other employers that would get you on appropriate tonnage.

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Consider yourself corrected. There are no tonnage limits for the assessments. If they were they would be noted in the “Performance Conditions” for the assessment. Take a look at Enclosure (2) of NVIC 14-14 and let me know of you find tonnage specified for any of the assessments.

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I’ve tried like fifty times but for whatever reason I can never seem to open coast guard website links while aboard this boat. But I called the maritime school and they and this link agree there are tonnage requirements for the practical assesments. If there was no special requirements then it wouldn’tmake sense so many schools refuse to do all the practical assesments; the schools aren’t silly arbitrarily, there must be a perfectly logical reason their hands are tied. Here is the link Question about NCIV 14-14 assessments and how to obtain them for AS-D - #8 by Dolphins

The wifi on this boat barely works anyway and the company blocks various different websites, so that may be why. Gcaptain takes forever to load and sometimes refuses to load. Sorry. Thanks for the comment

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My understanding was there is seldom anyway to get hired aboard a large deep sea american flagged ship unless you have AS-D or AS-E on your MMC (unlimited tonnage). To be more precise, Google says that you can’t work without AS-D or AS-E on anything over a certain size.

I fully intend to go work unlimited tonnage NC/oceans, once I get AS-D complete, assuming there is actually jobs that pay a reasonable amount of money. I cannot keep taking further paycuts. I already have no payments and live in my car.

It’s allegedly a catch 22, you need AS-D go get the job on large ship, but you need to perform the AS-D practical assesment on a large ship before you can ever get a job

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That’s not the case, you don’t need to get an AB rating first to be hireable. I’ll let others give you hiring pointers, or heck search around past topics on this forum. Hiring can be a bit feast or famine depending on the flow of the US maritime labor market though, but there are places you can find steady work.

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I have a near coastal zone job that seems to be able to give me lots of deck or engine time depending what I prefer, but I was under the impression large ships that hire people want AS-D in conjunction with national AB-limited or unlimited, and/or national QMED in conjunction with STCW AS-E.

I know SIU has ‘AB dayworkers’ that don’t have STCW AS-D and are national ABs only (maybe they have STCW RFPNW; they must at mininum have STCW BST). MSC (and maybe SIU too) even has/have STOSs, which I suspect are OSs with RFPNW… I suspect transitioning to MSC and/or SIU would necessitate a significant paycut

I only have BST but hopefully I’ll have RFPNW very soon, and once I get PSC, LB, AB, and AS-D I can pivot to an unlimited tonnage vessel and make a lot more money. Obviously I need to learn a lot about being a good deckhand and rigger and get more wheelhouse/bridge knowledge; a bunch of stuff printed on an MMC alone doesn’t make a good mariner.

I may look into the tankerman assist classes; I’ve heard AS-D/AB tankermen PICs can make over $700 per day before taxes, although it may be next to impossible for a new tankerman-assist to find a job and get the required loads to become a tankerman-PIC, and furthermore, even if the stars align, I can’t imagine I could make $700 per day and have the ability to work over — I’m certain I would be lucky to even more $600 or $500

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I defer to the obviously superior knowledge of this unnamed “maritime school.” What the feck do I know? I only wrote the NVIC.

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Yeah, but aren’t NVICs more of just a suggestion, kind of like a stop sign? It’s ok to follow but you don’t really have too.

Former Coastie Sends.

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If you’re intending to not be anonymous on the internet, may I ask your name, sir?

I will call all the maritime schools that claim they can’t perform NVIC 14-14 in its entirety, and I will tell them the guy who wrote the 14-14 told me 1. There’s zero tonnage requiremenrs and 2. I will also attempt to dispel the other myth(s) they use as justification for why they can’t perform 14-14

I’m not claiming any expertise but when all the schools claim they can no longer perform all of 14-14 neither on a boat nor in a simualtor then there must be more than meets the eye here

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Yeah, but aren’t NVICs more of just a suggestion, kind of like a stop sign? It’s ok to follow but you don’t really have too.

Yes, they are guidance. A tonnage requirement would have to be in regulation to be mandatory. So use your lergalk research skills to find that tonnage requirement in the CFR.
Are you referring to the school? Yes, a school can set their own requirement that exceeds a limitation. So a school can set a tonnage requirement for their own courses even if the Coast Guard will not require one.

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Have you ever heard of Google?

Perhaps instead of AB, you might consider a career as a sea lawyer. You seem to have a talent for it.