I wanted some advice. I got a 100 Ton , AB, P.I.C. I hate to let it expire in Feb. What are my options . I got about 230 days of SeaTime and only 60% counts due to it being Army Mariner Seatime . Im about to have knee surgery here soon. I was told you can freeze your credential. I also read if you dont have 360 days you can do a at home test. Any advice. I hate to let it go . I used to work in the industry a few years ago. I might jump on with MSC or maybe back to tugging. Thanks in advance.
Absent getting more sea time, you have the following options, the latter two assume you don’t need to use your MMC in the immediate future:
Take home test. It will be mailed to you after your application for renewal has been evaluated and the only thing you lack is the sea time. The take home test is not available for Tank Vessel PIC. You need to re-take the course for that if you do not have cargo transfers in the last 5 years.
Continuity. This preserves your ability to renew in the future. You cannot sail on the credentials, but you won’t “lose” them. To restore to full active status in the future, you will need to do whatever is required for renewal at the time you want to come out of continuity, this would be whatever is required now, plus any new requirements that might have been put in place after you went to continuity.
Do nothing for the immediate future. The Coast Guard recently extended the “grace period.” This is the period after your MMC expires when you can still renew the expired MMC. It was one year, CG-MMC Policy Letter 01-24 has extended that to six years. So you can, for the immediate future, let your MMC expire and renew it before the grace period runs out.
Mine is in continuity, do stcw, renew stuff, firefighting!, and open book tests ,
at least you can get it back. I’ve been retired a while now and mostly just miss the pay checks!!