Please Help. What is the minimum courses needed to Renew my 2nd mate/1600 ton license?

Maritime Topics Maritime Training & Licensing
1

Hello,

I have been struggling to figure this out over the past few months and now I am coming up on licensing expiration. I am your run of the mill 2nd mate unlimited oceans/1600 ton master. I last upgraded in 2017 and did all my required classes then. I do not actively sail and have no plans to in the future but I continue to be employed shoreside and I like having a current license in my back pocket (I am a training instructor/simulator operator). I do not have sea time over the past 5 years and will do the take home test or do the instructor exemption.

I am reading the USCG checklist for renewal and BST/Advance Firefighting/ARPA are not listed on the renewal requirements. I only see them under the STCW checklist. To me it looks like these classes are not required in order to renew but the mariners I work with are insistent that I need to take them.

So the question is, do I need to take the classes in order to just renew my license? Last time I paid out of pocket for these courses and I would really like to avoid having to do that again if I do not need to.

Thank you all.

2

You will need a basic training refresher, advanced firefighting refresher, and survival craft refreshers for your STCW endorsements. Refreshers, not revalidations.

To keep your national license it may only be an open book test.

May need a radar revalidation or refresher too because of no sea time.

3

You could just submit for renewal and then see what they ask for from you.

The only class you should have to take is the BST/Fire refresher if you’ve been employed on a vessel and are doing drills, there’s a “revalidation” course if not.
Yes, you have to have basic safety to work on basically anything, according to STCW amendments.

STCW Basic Training refresher (renewal) course is designed to provide you with a refresher of [Personal Survival Techniques] (PST) as set out in [table A-VI/1-1] and Fire Prevention and Fire-Fighting (FPFF) as set out in [table A-VI/1-2], and it is required for commercial maritime seafarers who already hold the STCW Basic Safety Training certificates.

We don’t have to take Radar refresher anymore.

There was a short time where the requirement was waved for Covid, but that has ended.

4

True, didn’t consider that with revalidation since he’s got no sea time not sailing.
I think I’d consider putting license in continuity so as not to lose it also.

5

You can renew the license and not STCW, and then restore STCW at a later date if you need it.

For the license only, since you are not actively sailing, you need the usual stuff like drug test, physical, and you will get n open book test mailed to you. Since you don’t have one year of sea time in the past 5 years, you will need a course to renew the radar observer endorsement. But, you can let that lapse and take the course to add it later if you need it.

For STCW, you will need REFRESHER (not “revalidation”) courses for Basic Training, Proficiency in Survival Craft, and Advanced Firefighting. If you did not get Leadership… for your last renewal, you will need that also. For Master 1600, it’s a course - “Leadership and Managerial Skills.” For 2nd Mate, it’s “Leadership and Teamworking Skills,” it can be shipboard assessments or a course. The Master requirement also covers 2nd Mate, so you should probably take the Leadership and Managerial Skills course to cover both your endorsements. There is no STCW renewal requirement for ARPA.

As I noted, you don’t need to renew STCW at this time, you can just renew the license and add STCW back when/if you need it. To do that, you will need to meet whatever STCW renewal requirements are in effect *at the time you want to restore STCW, plus any one-time new requirements that became effective since you let the STCW lapse.

You can also go to “continuity.” This lets you renew at some future date after your current MMC expires. If you go to continuity and want to restore everything in the future, you would need to do whatever is required to renew the license at the time you are coming out of continuity, and for STCW, it’s like I described above for renewing the license only and letting STCW lapse.

If you don’t have recent sea service, like the OP, you still need a course to renew radar. But as I noted above, you can renew the license without radar and add radar back (with course) at a later date.

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For the license only, since you are not actively sailing, you need the usual stuff like drug test, physical, and you will get n open book test mailed to you. Since you don’t have one year of sea time in the past 5 years, you will need a course to renew the radar observer endorsement. But, you can let that lapse and take the course to add it later if you need it.

Thank you so much! What a great comprehensive reply. Exactly what I was looking for.

This is what I want to do. Renew the license but not STCW. By the time I ever sail again I am sure there will be new STCW requirements so for me there is no point.

I was considering continuity originally but for me it makes more sense to do the physical, drug test, and TWIC rather than letting it go into hibernation. I still use the fact that I am licensed for a lot of my work.

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Actually, since you aren’t sailing under the authority of your license, you won’t need a TWIC either.
http://dco.uscg.mil/Portals/9/NMC/pdfs/regulations_policies/11-15.pdf?