We hear about mariners losing their licence all the time in the news. As engineers we always think about what would happen if we overfilled a fuel tank or whatever, but do any of you actually know anyone who has lost their license?
I’ve read about cases where people have but I haven’t heard many stories told from people I have sailed with.
I’m not considering anything that happens off a ship. I think we all know people who got DUIs or had some criminal charge or got medically disqualified. I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone tell me a story where someone did something on a ship that led to there license being taken. How comment actually is it? Im a First unlimited and was talking to my Chief about it a few days ago. I have sailed on Fishing Research and Government Contract boats.
Would be interested to hear first hand accounts. If you sailed with anyone.. what happened… and how long did it take for the mariner to lose their license??
AHL had a crusty old supernumerary who was given OS’s to do top-down painting projects. John B, I think he was. He’d been a master who’d lost his license for getting shitfaced underway and playing with the handgun from the safe. Apparently he had an AD and shot his drinking buddy, lost his license. After a few years he somehow got OS papers from the New Orleans REC, which was very amenable to cash for papers for ex-cons back in the 90’s, and I guess Bo Downing, being an arrogant giant hardon himself, rehired the guy.
Years ago I worked for a NY Harbor tug company delivering oil. We had two incidents while In was there.
I was aboard one unit when the Captain ran the barge aground in Long Island Sound. He backed up and got it off without a spill. The opposite crew refused to operate the barge and it went to drydock for repair. I was at the barge in the drydock when the USCG showed up. Not dudes in coveralls or in orange boats. Special agents with guns. They were looking for the captain.
I found out later that he did not have a license. He got drunk one night and when his daughters ex boyfriend came around, he threw a beating on the kid. Ended up with a felony assault conviction. When it came time to renew the USCG said NO. So he forged the expiration on his old license and was hired based on that. I never saw the guy again, he moved out of his house over the incident and later passed away. I do not know what kind of charges he caught.
Same company another master was hired to do one trip on a bunkering tanker. While loading biodiesel at Plaza Fuel the tankerman decided to steal some fuel, so he opens the “secret” valve that connects the pipeline to the bunker tank. He forgets about it. Bunker tank overfills onto the deck and into the water. He cleans the deck and says nothing. Boom boat takes away the boom with realizing the spill biodiesel looks different than diesel in the water.
Fast forward to the next day. Another captain comes in to deliver this product to the customer. He gets a dead boat right in Erie basin cut due to crappy biodiesel congeeling and clogging the fuel system. A few hours later the “investigation” team from the battery show up. They immediately suspect fuel. The tankerman shows a forged bunker receipt and says we sold it to ourselves last week.
While they were there, they discover the master did not have sufficient tonnage to be running a tanker. He was a tug guy. So he gets hooked up, had to go to the battery for hearings. While the tankerman skated. He was at the end of his career and I think he just surrendered the license instead of fighting it.
Master passed away a couple of years later and we spread his ashes at sea. Tankerman was the guy who walked off the barge at IMTT Bayonne and drowned around 2018.
I know three officers who lost their license. In each case the cause was marijuana on a random drug test. The USCG moved very quickly in each case. They also were very quick to reinstate the license once the officer had completed their treatment and jumped through all the hoops.
In forty years I’ve known a few officers who grounded boats. A couple through incompetence. One through drunkenness. None lost their license.
BTW: this is why I consider license insurance a bad deal. It doesn’t cover you if you fail a drug test, and it seems unnecessary if you ground a vessel.
I know 2 captains who were working together, opposite watches on a Well Stimulation vessel. The master was on watch when the co-flex was connected & handed it over to his relief. The weather picked up, the relief didn’t disconnect in time, an engine overspeed, vessel lost position & a newhire intern had his legs chopped off below the knees. Both captains lost their licenses for 6 months. But they went to work in the office, were elderly & I don’t think either sailed again. I think they stayed in the office & shipyard.
Ditto. From what I’ve experienced, when an accident is big enough to need license insurance, the company will pay the most in any lawsuit. The company will defend the officer if the officer defends the company. The company doesn’t want it to appear their hiring practices, SMS policies, training, procedures & officers are at fault so they stick by & pay the lawyer fees for even the most negligent officers.
Crazily enough, NOLA REC is involved with my tale of lost licenses as well. (Funny how often they’re involved)
The guy I know lost his license when he got busted for buying his upgrade a couple years ago. Made the news and everything. He’s sailing again as a mate, so I guess he did some form of redress to get it back.
I sailed with a Captain who had his license suspended for giving a false position report to Valdez traffic (this was prior to Exxon Valdez). The company (Mobil) gave him the option of retiring or being fired.
As we are approaching the pilot station at Valdez Narrows the ship at the berth had a spill and we were directed to anchor until the berth was available. As the anchorage at Knowles Head was some distance from the pilot station and if we anchored there it would delay our getting to the berth, the Captain asked Valdez Traffic, several times, if we could anchor closer to the pilot station at Rocky Point. Each time he received the response “Knowles Head is the customary anchorage.” They would not say yes or no. The Captain anchored off Rocky Point but he reported to Valdez Traffic we were anchored at Knowles Head.
Considering that it was not possible to have gone to/from Knowles Head in the time we reported doing so, the Coast Guard was waiting for us on the dock in Valdez and convened a hearing in the Valdez high school gym the next day. The Captain’s license was suspended shortly after.
Hahah this is exactly why I asked the question. Very interesting. I guess I also know a bosun who temporarily lost their MMC for a bad drug test. I think it took him 6 months to get it back (doesn’t seem that bad really).
I would have expected to hear more stories about people making bad mistakes that result in a loss of license. When I went to Seattle Maritime one of the instructors once said they have the key word “Malice” with license revocation. It seems to be true (with the exception of weed). If you don’t intentionally break the law they don’t seem to be out for your papers.
I ran across a guy one time, in Tuxpan I believe, who totd me that he went to prison (the only guy at least up that point to have that happen) for a barge oil spill. IIRC, he lost his license but somehow was working as a captain again.
At one time that was possible. Until 2010, mariners working on towing vessels in the offshore oil and mineral industry did not require licenses. I had come across a couple of instances where somone lost their license and was re-assigned to a towing vessel that did not require a license.
That exception was ended in 2010. It was ended following an incident where the Captain on one of these excepted vessels shot a deck hand. The Coast VGuard could not immediately suspend or revoke the Captain’s license, they had to wait until he was convicted of the crime. Suspension or revovcation requires the mariner to have been acting under the authority of their license, and since a license was not required on that vessel, the Captain was not acting under the authority of the license when he shot the deck hand.
That was a crazy story. The captain used the, “It wasn’t my fault, don’t use my confession against me because I was high on cocaine” defense. It didn’t work. He ended up with life with no parole. Don’t keep your pistol laying on the bridge console while doing cocaine & wrestling if you have a short temper was the lesson learned from this incident. I think a couple of tugboat companies on the bayou had a safety standdown over it & put up a couple of placards for reminders.
The link below has a paywall but sometimes you can get 1 article out of them if you don’t scroll up.
Full disclosure, I work for one of the leading providers of marine license insurance. This type of insurance is no different from your auto, home, or life insurance - you hope that you never have to use it.
While sexual harassment and operating under the influence are indeed common policy exclusions, the reality is that many incidents do not involve reckless or criminal conduct. Sometimes they stem from fatigue, equipment failures, miscommunications, or decisions made under pressure.
For a few hundred dollars annually and a 10-minute application, you receive 24/7 access to admiralty attorneys that would cost at least $250 per hour without insurance. Once you start adding in expert witnesses, the cost to defend yourself can quickly become significant, especially if you are charged with seamen’s manslaughter or anything pollution related. The marine industry is one of the only fields where ordinary negligence can be criminalized. Even if you do not lose your license, those defense costs will still be incurred.
Your may have some protection under your employer’s Protection & Indemnity or Vessel Pollution policies, however, the primary goal of those policies is to protect the interests of the vessel owner. You are the Insured under a Mariner Liability Insurance policy, not the vessel owner.
Would love to have seen those…“No open beverages, boots, or Pistols on Bridge Console"…"Cocaine & Wrestling Prohibited During Navigation” ?
Holy crap that case you linked is a frightening read!!
Second-in-command on the REPUBLIC TIDE, Captain Steven Lachney, was at the helm as the vessel drifted. With the stern moored to the rig by two six-inch ropes, Captain Lachney saw the six-inch rope tied to the port stern snap. Without warning anyone, Captain Lachney powered the port engine in reverse and the starboard engine in forward, causing the six-inch rope tied to the starboard stern also to snap. This, in turn, caused the REPUBLIC TIDE to surge away from the rig, jerking the coflex hose tight and pinning plaintiff against the catwalk backstop. The REPUBLIC TIDE continued to swing in the strong current and the thick coflex hose, which had pinned plaintiff, began sawing through his legs to the point that they were almost entirely severed from his body. After sustaining this injury and losing nine pints of blood, plaintiff, who had remained conscious throughout the ordeal, was evacuated.
Guy was a shoreside intern just thrown on the vessel to help because one of the regular crew needed relief.
Only shipmate I knew to have a license temporarily suspended was during an oil discharge investigation. The suspension was lifted afterward though. Seems like most of the suspensions and revocations in the database are drug and alcohol related.
This happened in the summer of 1999. Almost the whole crew was disbanded from the vessel & no one on the former or replacement crew was aloud to mention it. It was a very significant accident but we all pretended like it never happened. I was 21 at the time with 3.5 years in the maritime industry. What completely dumbfounded me was how important & influential Capt Givens & Lachney became afterwards. They were respected captains before, but after that guy got his legs sawed off & their licenses suspended, they were like Gods. They were put into high positions in TDW’s newbuild program, was over training other captains & got to pick what officers were put onto new vessels. WTF? An eye opener to me about how the oilfield worked.
