Hey folks, I’m getting ready to start my renewal process next month and could use a little advice.
I’ve have a 1600 Master with MOTV on Oceans, but I haven’t sailed blue water since before COVID and been running strictly inland the past few years doing bunkering. I really don’t want to lose any of my endorsements, but I’ve got zero recent seatime on STCW classed vessels on NC/O routes.
For renewal, am I going to need to retake STCW BST and Advanced Firefighting refreshers to keep everything current? Honestly, I have no desire to take them again, but I also don’t want to risk losing endorsements. Never know where the career might take me down the road.
Appreciate any insight from those who’ve been through a similar situation.
For STCW, you would need to take Basic Training and Advanced Firefighting REFRESHER courses (not revalidation), and if you have Proficiency in Survival Craft, you need a refresher for that.
But, you do not need to renew STCW if you are not expecting to need them. You can renew just the national endorsements and not STCW. If you later need STCW, you can restore them by doing whatever are the renewal requirements at the time you apply to renew/restore them.
If you decide to not renew STCW, make sure NMC knows that you aren’t renewing STCW. If you don’t tell them, they will assume you do and that will delay your application while they find out if that is your intention.
