Upgrading License Sea Time

Quick Question:

I’m upgrading my license from Master 100 GRT to Master 200 GRT, and the requirement for the 200 GRT is to have 360 days at sea while holding a master/mate license and serving as master/mate. Got it, great. As I currently have my Master 100 GRT, I already have the 720 days at sea submitted. I submitted my 400ish days I have accumulated since getting the Master 100 GRT while serving as a master. I got a voicemail from someone at the NMC saying that I need to resubmit ALL my days in order to upgrade to the 200 GRT. Wondering if anyone else has had that experience? I can’t imagine someone upgrading to a 1600 GRT license going back decades and re-submitting ALL of their days since the time of getting a Six Pack or 100 GRT license…?

Your old file isn’t kept at the NMC. It’s in storage and would take weeks to retrieve.

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So every license upgrade, you have to re submit all of your days? I guess it was my fault not sending in copies for my 100 ton.

No, but any sea time submitted before the switch to the NMC wasn’t automatically computerized so you either need to resubmit it or tell them what REC it’s at and wait for them to (hopefully) find it and get it to the NMC.

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Not just time from before NMC was set up (2009). Any sea time. NMC doesn’t store the records on site, so if you want to avoid delays, send it again. And as was noted, if the time was sent to an REC before NMC took over evaluations, it may never have made its way to NMC and may not be in NMC’s files.

And don’t ever send your originals (of any document) without making copies. If it gets lost and doesn’t get to the REC or NMC, you’re out of luck.

Sea time recorded on a Certificate of Discharge i in a database at NMC, but only of the ship sent the records to NMC. Generally, this is only done with “unlimited” tonnage vessels on coastwise or foreign voyages.

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Really? I thought they had electronic files now. That’s unfortunate…

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