Well finally after 2 months NI has informed me they will be approving my sea time and issuing my book. I applied under the new requirements, made application by email, paid online, etc. and it took over 2 months so far, add another couple weeks or so for delivery. They are supposed to send me a final email notification of when it is being sent and I hope they tell me my certification number. Then the resume’s will be flying!!!
The new requirements for sea time did not prove much of a problem, other than extending the real time it took to get the 180 days. All in all, it took about a year and a half.(28/14) I legitimately had what they required in order to count a sea day, but it still comes down to the service letter written by your company and the log book entries.
The most difficult part of this process was contacting them, I have no international plan on my cell phone nor from the phone on my vessel. I used their email and had to send multiple inquiries before they would reply. When they finally did reply they told me I needed to send additional information before my application could go further. They had known this for a month or so but never notified me, they just shelved my application. Lucky I had contacted them to check on the status of it or I might never have found out.
Now I am just waiting for the mail, praying it makes it through ok.!
Good luck to everyone else going through this.