So this is probably a quick answer that has likely already been seen here, I’m just mired in other things with work and such, thus hoping someone has a quick answer before I start sifting through CFR’s again (I get lost in there so easily).
I’m upgrading to Master 1600 NC or OC.
For reference I presently hold a 1600 ton Mate NC license with Mate (pilot) of towing vessels and AB-Unlimited. For the past 9 years I’ve been working on towing vessels of which the past 4 years has been as mate. All of that seatime has been written as oceans over 100 ton.
QUESTIONS: Do I need to have a course certificate for celestial nav to apply for the oceans endorsement? I took the course some 8 years ago at Maine Maritime but as a 1600ton student I couldn’t sit for Oceans without more oceans time (finally getting around to it now). Can I sit for the exam without having to take another class or do I need a more recent course certificate? Does the oceans endorsement require a course cert?
If I test for oceans on my Mate 1600 license will oceans be applied to my Master 1600 when I go for that? Or, should I just apply to test for Master 1600 with oceans at the same time. Does it matter?
As an aside, I really wish the maritime academies had an entire course or seminar during senior year on how to interpret the CFR’s and what exactly is required for upgrades/increase-in-scope. This was only glossed over in my license prep course.
Sorry if this is a redundant thread and thank you so much for any help you can render.
This has been discussed. I believe the answer is no. You will have two modules to take 206XX and 207XX if you use the old databank. One is Celestial Navigation is 15 Questions and 80% to pass, the other is a Nav Gen that is 20 questions and 70% to pass. Im about to do this myself, I’ll be using lapware.
If you can find a course that suffices the stcw requirements that would be great. This is why.
Where I did my course, after the fact I found out the hard way I had to do assessments to get the near coastal limitation removed on my stcw. The course only met the national requirement. So, if you decided to test at your local rec it would only meet the national requirement and you would have to get an assessment done to remove the n/c limitation on the stcw. Depending on where you are working this may not be a big deal. For me it was at the time and luckily a few months down the road I found someone who could sign me off.
The course is to substitute for the exam, you can just take the exam.
This is for the national endorsement (license), not STCW. For the national endorsement there is a celestial navy course requirement for OICNW (Mate) but not for Master. But there are other STCW requirements for Master, and to work on an oceans license you’ll probably also need the STCW.
Ah yes, the STCW side of things that I always forget about. I had passed the STCW assessments for celestial back in 2011. Not sure if they’re still good this far out. Do those even have an expiration when it comes to applying to a license?
Okay. So, for the national endorsement there is no course requirement. Then for the OICNW (Mate) I’ll have to take a course? The course cert I have from 2011 probably isn’t any good anymore, is there a limit on that?
Thank you so much for your time. Much appreciated.