Well, months ago I had looked into the whole LG Tankerman thing and though it doesn’t look like the way to go, someone (not on GCaptain) had suggested I ask USCG how many there were to gauge the popularity of the endorsement. Anyway, I found out I had to submit a formal FOIA request so I figured if I was going to wait ages for a response I might as well ask for more stats out of curiosity. I got the letter back yesterday after a couple of months and they gave me a raft of numbers on existing valid MMCs, new MMCs, and some endorsement stats. Apparently between valid, invalid, and dead mariners there are over 2 million people in their system which actually surprised me.
Maybe the below reflects what you see in the maritime industry?
Breakdown of valid MMCs by 10 year age group
Age Group
Valid MMC Count
10-19
1,214
20-29
40,511
30-39
73,584
40-49
63,332
50-59
66,521
60-69
67,602
70-79
32,163
80-89
5,761
90-99
349
Original MMCs issued by year since 2010
Year
Original MMCs issued
2010
14,457
2011
15,622
2012
15,527
2013
14,979
2014
17,848
2015
15,580
2016
13,617
2017
15,471
2018
15,530
2019
15,257
2020
11,109
2021
13,952
2022
16,356
Tankermen Stats
Tankerman Limitation
Tankerman-PIC
Tankerman-PIC (Barge)
Limited to Dangerous Liquid (DL) and Liquified Gas (LG) Cargoes
94
743
Limited to Dangerous Liquid (DL) Cargoes
5,419
11,984
Limited to Liquified Gas (LG) Cargoes
51
284
Restricted to Fuel Transfers of Dangerous Liquid (DL) Cargoes on Towing Vessels
1,771
26
Restricted to Fuel Transfers of Liquified Gas (LG) Cargoes on Towing Vessels
The main task of the coal passer is to ensure that the automatic stokers are kept fed from the bunkers. They also assist the fireman with ash disposal.
We are a glorious anachronism. But not for long. The costs of maintaining and crewing a coal fired steam plant are enormous. We have a 20 man engineering department. The plans are underway for a repower and addition of stabilizers and bow thrusters is my understanding.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say Coal Passers
