My license was first issued in 2010. Mate 1600 GRT NC with STCW II/1 & II/4 (II/3 was added on first renewal). All class and assessment requirements met by a 1600 Mate program (not separate individual coursework).
Life happened and derailed any previous plans to upgrade to Master. Now that I’m looking to do so I’m not sure I’m looking at the correct checklist and, if I am, whether or not additional training and assessments are needed. I used to be pretty good at deciphering the CFR’s and regulations, but I’m missing something. At least I hope I am.
For the license Master Less than 1600 GRt You probably want Master More Than 500 GT and less than 3000 GT. But there are not many differences from master 3000 GT or more. Better than the checklist, see NVIC 11-14
Master 3,000 GT now requires almost all of the unlimited master classes and assessments. You’re looking at the wrong checklist but it’s still mostly correct.
I appear to pursue licensing at the exact wrong moment. Initially I was in that very short window, 2 years, where you were required to have your gluteus maximus in a chair for XX hours for a smorgasbord of classes in order to get anything greater than a 200 Ton combined with Near Coastal or Ocean routes. There was no assessment or testing option, you had to have your butt in a chair.
I’m on tugs, an ATB to be exact, and I’m going to assume that this additional coursework will be as relevant to the work I do as the classes I took to get my license in the first place. Needed to satisfy what my employer wanted but otherwise completely useless.
I had hoped to identify evidence of, “unless previously met” or some other exemption to avoid it but it doesn’t appear to be possible.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I could upgrade to National Master 1600 GRT and take a Celestial Navigation course to qualify for Ocean routes without upgrading any of my STCW endorsements. The STCW II/3 endorsement would cover me as Master on any vessel of 200 GRT or less on international voyages.
Not entirely correct. You can get the national endorsement for Master 1600 without upgrading STCW. But you can only take the celestial navigation course to add oceans to an already issued master 1600 near coastal. If you don’t want to apply for Master 1600 NC and later apply again to add oceans, you must take the celestial exam in an REC at the same time as the rest of the exam.
Your STCW II/3 endorsement is for Mate. To upgrade it to Master, you need to complete some assessments (but no courses). See NVIC 13-14, you need to do the assessments in Enclosure 2 that have the note “Master” in the left column.
Classes were never required for Master 3,000 GT until 2017. They’re also enforcing the sea time requirements for STCW endorsements now so you need 3 years as OICNW to upgrade to master (or one year as OICNW and one year as Chief Mate). It isn’t an automatic endorsement anytime someone gets a Master 1,600 ton anymore.
AFAIK, classes were required for OICNW from something like 2002 up until mid 2011 then they were codified in the next CFR revision in 2014 and went into effect at the beginning of 2017. That would be less than 6 years out of the past 20 years where classes were not required for OICNW.