USCG Six Pack license sea time fraud

[CSY Man]

Sea Time on boats versus flying: You can log 15-20 minutes of flight time for your aviation log book, but some commercial air taxi companies pay a minimum of :30 minutes for each trip. (Easy to take the low road and log that, legal if not used for required hours towards a new license or recurrent flight time requirements)

As for USCG sea time:

[Pete the Cat]

Originally Posted by mvweebles

Here is a decent summary of the different endorsements of the OUPV/100T licenses. When I received my USCG 100T Coastal Waters 22-years ago, the exam for OUPV and 100T are identical.

I did not find the exam simple at all. Class I took was ten 8-hour days with the exam on the final day - took about 4-hours to complete. Of the 20 people who started the course, 4 dropped out enroute, and 5 did not pass the exam. I can absolutely say that the study work for the exam was time well spent with or without the license.

https://www.boatwise.com/faq.html

The licenses for OPUV and 50 T and 100T are different. You have to take sections on fire training, stability, and some other things in addition to the Rules of the Road and plotting which are common across all licenses. I agree that the license does not document competence and that there is a question about how serious the roles were in gathering "sea time", but the license does suggest that the holder knows the law and rules of basic seamanship which I find most recreational boaters wilding ignorant of. The CG used to spot check sea time of the bigger licenses, but I am not sure if they do that. The OPUV is easy, the licenses above that get harder to get and to retain. There is also a requirement for drug testing, finger printing and CPR to maintain the upper level licenses. If I was hiring me I would ask for documentation of experience and references--we have them if we have done it.
Ray Durkee
Castine Maine

[Ike]

Very interesting thread. I am a retired Coast Guard officer (prior enlisted) . I had the dubious distinction of being one of the very few (and the only one at the time) Regular USCG stationed in Salt Lake City Utah (don't ask). As one of a long list of collateral duties I administered the OUPV exam for fishing guides and float tours (river rafting) who operated on lakes and rivers that were considered Federal Jurisdiction. The exam wasn't designed for that kind of operation but with a little study most of them could pass. Just to see what was on the exam I took it myself (I did not score the exams, they were sent to the Marine Safety Office in San Francisco for scoring) I did not do very well. But I would have passed. But with a little review I have since taken it again just to see what's still on it, and done better.

The one thing that was difficult for the people taking the exam (and they all complained about it, but I was just a proctor) was documenting time. I wouldn't have a big issue because my Coast Guard sea time counts and is easily documented. But that has little to do with operating small boats. I was always on ships. However, I have been operating small boats both sail and power since I was a pre-teen but would have a devil of a time documenting it.

Frankly I have very little interest in getting one and for most people who just want to put Lic. Capt behind their name it is useless and basically just an affectation. But for people who actually make a living by carrying passengers for hire, it is essential.

As for those who like to call themselves Captain, I reserve that for military people who have earned that rank, or people who are in fact the person in charge, the Captain, of a vessel carrying passengers or cargo. The rest are just a skipper.

[dnight]

I sat and passed my MCA 3000T commercial ticket 20 odd years ago. I still work in the superyacht industry so it gets renewed every 5 years with all of the renewal courses. Last time at Warsash Maritime College in the UK in 2019. If you didn't wear a tie to the exam you couldn't even see the examiner. The exam was one on one, oral, for about 2 hours. Before you receive your exam eligibility notice they pick through your sea time with a fine comb. If any fraud is found then you are barred from becoming an MCA Master, and who ever signed off on the sea time has their ticket revoked. The Poms don't mess about.

[Capt Phil]

After nearly 20 years of running commercial vessels ontheleftoast of Canada as well as completing the 6 month vancouver Vocational School course for a Mates ticket for Coastal Inland waters,I moved to the US. After a simple application to the USCG In the 1970’s, Imwas grandfathered Into a 200 ton license and ran a small charter/ delivery business out of San Diego for around 10 years while living aboard first our sailboat then our DeFever 54. I never wrote a test or was questioned about the rules of the maritime road. Did I just slip through the cracks? I’ve been told that I have forgotten more about boats and the sea than most people know But as the years pileup, there is not a way of life I would have chosen other than goin to sea at age 14. A lot has changed, particularly in the area of navigation but there are some things that don’t... like helping out some one who has got them selves into a problem out there.
There aren’t many of us old sea dogs around any more. But we still can spot another one in any harbor,so give us a break... better still buy us a beer and listen to the tall tales we have when boats were wood and men were steel!

Cheers,
Phil Humphries

[Nightcrawler]

Having just sat for my Masters license, I'm thinking the six pack is no longer the same as Masters. I had several sections to do, taking nearly the entire day.

The six pack guys had one. They were gone before their coffee got cool.

[visionsinsight]

Pardon my ignorance, I am pretty new. By days you mean 24 hrs right? So, really it's 17,280hrs for 100tn and 8640hrs for 6pack right?

I got my STCW and ASA ASA 101,103,104. I am looking for time on boats so I can get more experience and eventually either a 6pack or 100tn. Does it matter what kind of boat? I want to sail across the Atlantic but I might be able to get a job on a local tug boat. Two very different things.

An experienced sailor at my STCW class also mentioned rya motor cert as required in Europe. What opinion do you have on that?

Thanks for your ears

[SVHarmonie]

Originally Posted by visionsinsight

Pardon my ignorance, I am pretty new. By days you mean 24 hrs right? So, really it's 17,280hrs for 100tn and 8640hrs for 6pack right?

I got my STCW and ASA ASA 101,103,104. I am looking for time on boats so I can get more experience and eventually either a 6pack or 100tn. Does it matter what kind of boat? I want to sail across the Atlantic but I might be able to get a job on a local tug boat. Two very different things.

An experienced sailor at my STCW class also mentioned rya motor cert as required in Europe. What opinion do you have on that?

Thanks for your ears

No.

The USCG defines a “day” as 8 hours, although they frequently accept 4 at the discretion of the reviewing officer. More hours in a single calendar day don’t add to your sea time, so if you are at sea for 16 hours in one day, that is still ONE day.

You can not add up hours to get to a “day.” Going out 4 separate calendar days for 2 hours does not make a “day.”

The size of boat matters for the license you get—in a complex way I don’t fully understand. But if all your seatime is on 24 foot boats, you are not going to get a 100 ton ticket—maybe 50 ton.

[slug]

It’s been 40 some years so my memory is weak, but I received 100 ton ticket and never sailed a boat bigger than 40 ft

Seatime was a mixture of short and long days

Most of the short days on oyster boats ...dawn till midday

Long days at sea on sailing yachts ..24 hr days

It seems that the inspecting official had leeway when interpreting seatime

License issued Baltimore

[visionsinsight]

Thank you

[doug45]

I am a captain with many years and charters in BVI would love to help

[captmikem]

Originally Posted by seacap

It’s sad. In the good ol days you needed to know the material to pass the test. The sea schools back then taught you the material, not which questions would be used.. Who ever filed the Freedom of Information suit to release the questions did a huge disservice to the marine community.

A number of years ago, when I sat for my first license (1,000 ton mate), each question was on a 3 x 5 card. I had a yellow pad which I was supposed to write the answers on. (Took a few pages for some questions) Took about a week to take the test.

There were only two questions on the rules of the road:
1: write the international rules.
2. Write the inland rules.

I failed one question on Instruments and Accessories, question was something like 'Name all the magnets for correcting a ships compass, something about coefficient of magnetism and flux density. The test was halted when I missed that question and I had to leave and come back in six weeks to retake that part of the exam and continue.

The radar test was 10 plots in 10 minutes. All on paper.

Much simpler now, all multiple choice.

M

[Lihuedooley77]

Cap,

Your having high blood pressure readouts is a right on fact for many. They call it "white coat fever " .

Erica is also an M.D, and is now retired as a supervising M. D for L.A. County Health Dept.

Daily she takes her B.P. at home and logs it, and it is just fine....she goes into Kaiser , or an FAA medical examiner , no U.S.C.G but she is a private pilot and a sailor .

From her retirement she uses Kaiser for her annual physical. At the doctors office, HER BLOOD PRESSURE GOES UP LIKE A SPACE SHUTTLE LAUNCH.

We are fit, and work out five days a week, and hike three days a week for our cardio. We are in pretty darned good physical condition, but it cracks me up when she comes home and tells me about scaring the dickens out of the examining M.D, especially the young M.D.'s and them wanting to put her in the hospital . She brings her B.P log with her.

[IslandInfedel]

Originally Posted by CSY Man

Sea Time on boats versus flying: You can log 15-20 minutes of flight time for your aviation log book, but some commercial air taxi companies pay a minimum of :30 minutes for each trip. (Easy to take the low road and log that, legal if not used for required hours towards a new license or recurrent flight time requirements)

As for USCG sea time:

Billed hours have nothing to do with legal loggable time.
If that fraudulent fictional logbook was submitted in any way it would range from perjury to fraud, depending on who you tried to pass it off on. A logbook made using billed hours is as much a logbook as a $100 from the treasury is the same as a $100 in movie prop money.

“ Loggable“ is clearly laid out for sea, air, and most land instances.

Having a license just means you are legal to do the job, being marketable is a different matter, a simple example of this would be the huge quality difference between doctors or construction workers, most people can relate to this.

[Lihuedooley77]

As to logging time, sailing and flying.
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For the 100 ton USCG Merchant Marine Officers License...back then , minimum for one day, was about 5 hrs plus.

You get that time in, you have one day. No matter how many more hours, I just logged it as one day. Same for Deliveries from Cabo to Los Angeles. I day was 1 day.

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Instructor: Basic Sailing : 3.0 hours, Followed by teaching an Intermediate lesson 3.3 hrs. That added up to one day documented time.

However, if later that same day ( night ), If I instructed an Advance Sailing lesson, that puppy was 6 hrs on a 44 plus foot sailing vessel, I would add that as a separate day.

The basic and intermediate lessons were on 27 to 33 footers ( 3 hrs each ). Advanced lessons, at sea ( 6 hrs ) 44 to 55 footers.

The above was work, and effort. I would get done about 9 or 10 pm, and we would head up to the Warehouse bar , for dark rum on the rocks with a splash of water. Bloody well earned,.

Sailing, Tahiti, Tonga, Bvi, etc each day underway was one day, 36 to 51 footers.

It took me 5 years to get my 720 days of documented time to sit for my USCG 100 ton.. No B.S, or mickey mousing anything.

Keep a factual log book.
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Flying was logged in HOURS in my pilot log book. I might fly three or four flights in one day, each was logged separately. this was in hours, not days.

Private Instruction ( P.I.C.) : 1.1 hrs, Commercial Instruction ( P.I.C.), :1.3 hrs.... Private Cross Country instruction ( P.I.C) : 3.2 hrs. What ever was on the Hobbs meter, that was what was logged. ( PIC= Pilot in command )

Pretty simple.