When I was down there there was a running joke among certain old timers that back in the day all you had to do was be able to spell your name to pass the license exams at the New Orleans REC. I never saw it happen myself though.
1 Like
Never saw someone spell their name? YeeeshâŚRough crowdâŚ
2 Likes
I remember hearing many years ago that in the early days of oil exploration in the Gulf, illiterate Cajun boat drivers were allowed to take oral CG exams.
You can still take oral USCG exams.
The NMC has a credential verification tool. Employers who do not use it are foolish and asking for trouble. Itâs a free tool. Plunk in the name and number and it tells you if the credential is valid or not.
Then there are NMC issued credentials based on forged sea letters. The NMC is supposed to get a copy sent by the company but that doesnât always happen. I keep all my originals.
How can that work?
Thatâs only discharges, not sea time letters.
This is true about the oral tests. I think they did it well past the early days into the 80âs & 90âs so they are probably still doing it because of the ADA. When I worked with Tidewater in the mid-late 90âs the first CE that I sailed with was illiterate & obtained his DDE4000 with the oral test.
At first I was like everyone else who learned his secret, âO great, Iâm working for an illiterate moron.â After a couple of days I figured out like most did that I was completely wrong. The guys was an illiterate boat fixing Genius. It was a 185ft seismic boat that would go out for 5 weeks at a time. For the 2 years that I worked for him we had zero down time with zero shore support. Except for the RADAR, he could fix everything. I had to do all the logs, he would dictate to me but I didnât mind.
He was a black gentleman & the reason he couldnât read was because his father was murdered when he was 6 & he went to work picking the peppers that went into Tabasco Sauce when he was 7 to help put food on the table for his younger siblings. He was from New Iberia La & went to work on OSVâs when he was 16. On top of being very mechanically inclined he remembered everything & told stories constantly. When he started on boats most captains were racists & wouldnât let the black guys eat inside the boat, he had to eat on the back deck. They made him bring his own silverware & plates from home because the racists didnât want to use a plate or fork after a black man. He had dozens of racist stories about stuff so horrible I know I couldnât make them up. Like most people who are illustrate, he was delt a bad hand in life but he played it better than most. His last few years of working he stopped sailing on his license & worked as QMED. I heard he was an awesome oiler too.
8 Likes
But they didnât mind putting their dicks in subhuman black women. Curious the rationalizations we come up with for our various behaviors.
4 Likes
I hope that isnât the due diligence they do. I put my info in one night and it came back that no records found. I panic called the NMC the next day and they said there was a problem with the website, but you know it was still up. Iâm just glad I was checking on my medical certificate and not searching for a job.
Most of the time the verification tool only works with Explorer. A lot of the time Chrome and Safari will show no results, but the website allows one to put in all the required information.
1 Like
Typical govât one size fits you attitude. People who have to sell software make sure it works in the browsers that people use.
1 Like
It doesnât work very well. Doesnât work at all on MacBookâs. I think it requests you use a specific browser or something.
Exact same tests? Examiner reads the text and applicant chooses 1 of 4 possible answers verbally? Iâve never tried it but I think it would be more difficult having to pick the correct one without visually going over them. I consider the wording in many if not most questions and answers once or twice just to be sure. Maybe Iâm more dim witted than the average applicant but I donât think so. At least not according to my mama.
1 Like
I just verified myself on a MacBook Air using google chrome.
The website is SLOW. Real slow. They have a little popup window that tells you it will be slow when you hit the button to submit the search.
Trying to use it on a VSAT connection offshore really sucks.
1 Like
A manager for a charter boat company in the Virgin Islands gets a call from a bareboat charterer thatâs been gone a few days. The charterer asks him to send out a boat with some anchors. The manager tells him there are 2 anchors on the boat.
The charterer says âYeah, I know that. We used one on our first night out and we used the last one this afternoon.â
2 Likes
It would seem the coconut telegraph is getting fired up. All hearsay so far, but these days it seems hearsay is better than the real thing.
I have heard the same thing the OP started the post about, several mariners fired because it was learned that they obtained their MMC endorsements fraudulently, seems that money exchanged hands and voila, endorsements were issued. Will be interesting to see just how far this goes.
Itâs a weird portal. Did you use Internet Explorer? Other browsers wonât work with it