Time requirement for getting your Captain's License - The Hull Truth

MarinersSchool · 12-28-2007, 08:52 AM

There is a lot of confusion on the time that is actually required for getting your Captain's License... Here are the facts:

You are required to have a total of 360 days experience on board a boat since you were 15 years old. 90 of those days need to be in the last three years. As little as 4 hours on a boat can be considered one day. And in one 24 hour period you can claim just one day of sea service time. If you own the boat yourself you sign off your own time. If your time was spent on friends or families boats they can sign the time off for you. Your time does not need to be signed off by a licensed Captain and in fact you do not even need to be operating the boat yourself for this time to count.

This is basically an honor system which the Coast Guard will accept your best guess... You are not required to submit log books. If you choose to use one of our courses Mariners School will provide you with a Sea Service form and guidance on how to properly fill it out. This is basically a form that looks like a calendar... In each month there are 5 slots... Each of these slots represent a month of your choice... You simply make a best guess as to how many days you were out on a boat for a particular month... Once the total of days is greater than 360 you have now met the Coast Guards time requirement for getting your Captain's License.

For those of you looking to get your license there is more information in the Mariners School forum Getting your Captain's License Fact vs. Fiction on this site...

saltysenior · 12-30-2007, 05:41 PM

not to pick on you personally,but my observation of the methods to gain a operators [so called captains] license,is to simply pay the money to a school.....sort of like the guys that flew on 9/11..... I am waiting 4 months for any action on my renewal ,#9,and was told by c.g. that i should have went to some sea school to have it done..

MarinersSchool · 12-31-2007, 08:42 AM

As is with any industry... There are operations that are poorly run and then their are those that make it seam easy... Mariners School takes great pride of our reputation...

In the last 8 years we have had more than 15,000 students go through our courses... Currently we enjoy a 98.7% success rate. The most important thing to me being the business owner is that my instructors have never seen their classes final exam... So with this said Mariners School has built its reputation of teaching understanding not memorization.... We teach the how's and why's not just how to pass a test...

saltysenior · 01-01-2008, 08:58 AM

your instructors may not see the final group of questions,but the students are tutored on a pool of questions that the final exam questions are drawn from....i do not believe a person taking a c.g. test on his own [no school] has access to that pool....however, my biggest complaint is the sea time issue.....some how people who , IN REALITY, never even come close to meeting the sea time requirements, are issued a license.....

jkp1 · 01-01-2008, 09:12 AM

Salty,

Where are you going with this? Seems you have some axe to grind.

Do you resent the inference from the CG that formal schooling provides some level of preferential treatment? Is so , don't blame Mariners.

saltysenior · 01-03-2008, 02:54 PM

I guess I am grinding an axe...but I believe my statements convey my feelings...sea schools have allowed a once highly regarded and hard to obtain license ,now to be had by almost all for a fee...

ychtcptn · 01-06-2008, 09:05 AM

I am surprised at your hours for a sea day, it is in fact 8 hours or more while underway. While looking, once again, for the right CFR notation I was surpised at the different schools giving the wrong info. I found one that said 6 hours, one that said 4-8 hours and yours at 4 hours. I will endeavor to find the right CFR notation, I have looked it up many times and wish I had saved it.
I have to admit it is a bone of contention with me the subject of hours for a sea day, I make sure I tell my US mates that I will not sign off on anything less than 8 hours, I will however make a notation of 4-8 hour days and leave it up to the CG whether they will give credit for them.
If I had to get 720 8 hour days for my 1600, so should everyone else.
By the way the MCA (british licensing authority) counts a day at sea as any time you leave the dock!!

ychtcptn · 01-06-2008, 09:22 AM

Found It!

46 CFR 10.103 definitions.

Day means, for the purpose of complying with the service
requirements of this part, eight hours of watchstanding or day-working
not to include overtime. On vessels where a 12 hour working day is
authorized and practiced, such as on a six-on, six-off watch schedule,
each work day may be creditable as one and one half days of service. On
vessels of less than 100 gross tons, a day is considered as eight hours
unless the Officer in Charge, Marine Inspection determines that the
vessel's operating schedule makes this criteria inappropriate, in no
case will this period be less than four hours.

Well I guess in a way we are both right. It can be 4 hours, but that is up to the CG to determine it and only for vessels under 100 tons.

Halacious · 02-15-2008, 07:53 AM

Yachtcaptain, I feel for you. there's a few out there that are guilty of perjury and have little business claiming the right we justly earned. Matter of fact, my experience with the FWC boat operators is they are much more dangerous than your local Bayliner operator. I've had them racing around my boat in the Keys while I was diving below (completely legal) scared to surface because they were trying to chase us down.
I had one try to pull me over and couldn't pull his boat next to mine because he was trying to approach from up current, when he pulled it out of gear he had no control and I have to take evasive action. I told him to point his bow into the current and stay put and would I come to him.
I've got a few more of those I could tell.
Anyway back to the hours... Yes they do accept 4 hours but I don't think I ever put my boat in and spent under 5 hours in it, it would be more accurate to use 12 hours. 6 am to 6 pm is an average day for me. But I think the CG rule for the 8 hours is not for the minimum time for a day, I think it is for a maximum time for the day. They don't want overly tired personnel in charge of a vessel.

50 ton
32 cc Wellcraft
19-6 1974 Aquasport since 1976

ychtcptn · 02-16-2008, 06:28 AM

It is interesting that mariners school was all over this site, drummming up business and toting his school, but since I posted he has been strangley quiet. I see they are an official vendor, maybe they are to busy churning out licenses to respond!
PS- I do not hold any grudge toward any individaul who wants to get a license, any kind of schooling is better than none. I think that there should be mandatory schooling/courses for anyone on the water.