Retired MSC QMED electrician/ET/RET FROM 2002-2019. Requested my complete archived file from NMC and discovered 40% of my 9,021 days at sea were missing. I have all of my sea service letters however, when I questioned NMC personnel about this, they said that in order for them to amend my sea service record, I would have to apply for an upgrade to my USCG MM Document of Continuity. Was unable to impress on the NMC folks I spoke with that I AM RETIRED. LESSON LEARNED: My situation may be hopeless, but to prevent this from happening to those of you reading this, ensure your sea service letters have been received in their entirety at NMC as they tout themselves as being the official archivist of mariners records.
although I may be naive, I figure if i submitted time that i’ve missed submitting they’d add it to my file, and inrease the HP or whatever but maybe it’s too much effort for them ? they’d have to review the tonnage and HP and etc. etc.
Oh man. I don’t know how long you’ve been retired, but I don’t think NMC ever kept (or even now keeps) sea service records for mariners. What they are supposed to keep or archive are the past applications you have sent in. In the good days when the local REC kept your file, they could have a fairly accurate idea of all of your past sea time just by flopping open your file.
the NMC doesn’t seem to be able to see any of the past service submittals without some extraordinary action. Therefore, when you submit a request for an upgrade or new endorsement, they now expect you to resubmit all sea time required to document the new endorsement, whether or not it was submitted in the past.
I’ve learned the hard way too - always keep your own copies of everything because once records go missing, getting anyone to fix it is like pulling teeth.
gads, that’s horrible, I seem to be a minority having never had issues with nmc and yes, it all went to hell when they went ‘‘bigger is better’’ moving back east.
people use to be able to go to lousiana or someplace, or hono? and get a license as you’d get all the ez questions. haha , not any more jack
That’s a big part of why they don’t do it that way anymore. I’m frankly surprised the NOLA REC hasn’t been totally shutdown yet for all the licenses bought there and being in the pocket of all the bayou companies getting their “chosen ones” licenses that weren’t earned.
They used to give oral tests to the license applicants who could not read or write, at least they don’t do that any more, I hope.
Houston REC lost my entire file when they moved to their new location. Really bad for me since I had lost some of my early sea time including sail time on very large sailing ships. I could never replace that and so still missing that time and the endorsements I should have been able to get. Since then I’ve tried my best to get sea time letters at the end of every hitch. I still have most of them since the early 80’s.