I am currently a toungepoint student two months in trade and my shipmates were telling me the AB/QMED we get doesn’t count for deepdrafts. Which is the type of ship I want to work on after graduating. Should I still stay here and get my useless ab limited and qmed or get my OS than go to military sealift or SIU? Sorry for my horrible grammar.
First of all, why exactly would your qmed/ab be useless on a ship? Please explain.
Second, even if this is true which i don’t think it is, you would still be employable at other places even if it isn’t what you want to do right now. Get those endorsements, go make some money then worry about your dream job later.
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Sounds like someone is breaking your balls. I worked with a tongue point cadet many years ago on an AHL tanker and that was definitely a full sized ship.
That is a really good program I highly recommend you stick it out. Going from AB limited to unlimited just takes some more sea time which you can accrue anywhere. Free programs like that only come around once.
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A QMED is a QMED. They are all the same. You can work on any vessel in the capacity of the specific type of QMED endorsement you hold.
There is a limit on ABs other than unlimited on larger vessels. AB limited or AB Special can only be half of the required number of ABs, at least half have to be unlimited. This applies no matter how you get the AB endorsement, so you aren’t getting anywhere faster by going OS and getting sea time that way. See page B.4-8 of Volume III of the Coast Guard Marine Safety Manual.
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I don’t know if you should stay or go, but the best QMEDs I ever worked with, more than one, were Tongue Point graduates.
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You’re probably referring to Able Seafarer Engine/Deck. You need to go into the office and ask if the program is approved or whatever to issue that credential. I went to SMA and they were completely clueless as to what Able Seafarer was and couldn’t care less.
So I went through the NMC approved courses list and found that your course does not specifically state anything about Able Seafarer but does talk about RFPEW/RFPNW. If you were to have held your QMED/AB along with RFPEW/RFPNW before the end of 2016 you would have been grandfathered.
Here is the checklist for AS-E(Able Seafarer Engine). IF I’m reading it right it basically says you need 360 days as QMED or 180 as QMED and be in an approved program. Again you need to ask the office people or whoever to determine if they have any approvals for AS-E/AS-D. My guess is because they are affiliated with IBU(?) they may not be as clued in on able seafarer.
No matter what do not drop of over Able seafarer, there are a ton of jobs where you don’t need it and will give you the seatime you need for AS. You will need QMED/AB to sail at all though, there is no way to get AS without having QMED/AB. Also you need to make sure to get all of the assessments for RFPEW/RFPNW signed off so you can turn those in with your QMED/AB application.
JD Cavo is giving you the absolute guidelines to go by. Your choice from here.