A Professional Maritime Trainer's Rant

[Pat Anderson]

My friend Capt. Richard Rodrigues writes the Bitter End Blog on Facebook. He is a professional maritime trainer and also a Tow Boat U.S. captain out of Anacortes. If you do Facebook, this is one blog that is always interesting and worth subscribing to! This is a copy and paste of his post from this morning!

I am in 100% agreement!


BitterEnd Blog
Personal blog · 888 followers
Maritime ramblings of Capt. Richard Rodriguez, Director of Operations for Zenith Maritime.

RANT - What’s wrong with professional maritime training.

In a nutshell, it’s the antiquated regulations of the NMC (National Maritime Center). This is the arm of the Coast Guard, based in Martinsburg, West Virginia that oversees schools like Zenith Maritime. Most of you know that I am a partner, instructor, and Director of Operations for Zenith Maritime. What follows is my personal opinion and does not represent Zenith.

Let me give you a few examples.…

Chart Plotting: As NOAA sunsets paper (raster) products there is really no plan they (NMC) can offer. When I asked the Seattle Regional Exam Center (NMC’s local testing office) what was being done, I was told they ordered all the training charts (for testing) they could find. My question was, “Isn’t that like ordering all the buggy whips you can find?” I got total silence. Don’t get me wrong the basics are important, but the CG needs to approve apps or plotters that don’t require a 6-pac guy to purchase or be trained on a huge and expensive ECDIS: https://www.dco.uscg.mil/ECDIS/. Most small vessels, those less than 100’, don’t and didn’t have the room for plotting on a 3x4’ paper chart.

Solution: NOAA and the CG need to approve a basic set of guidelines for app makers to meet the needs of small vessels. For example, use NOAA ECDIS chart symbols and colors, and make the charts updatable to the weekly Notice to Mariners. If the FAA can create a system that allows pilots to use an iPad for flight, the CG can do the same for vessels. Create a curriculum that teaches to these standards.

Tides and Currents: NMC wants us to include tide and current corrections from tables that NOAA has stopped producing. NOAA now has an interactive website, that requires an internet connection. It just offers stations, no harmonic or secondaries. When I stated that most people use apps on small boats, I was told we had to teach it and test to the old standard.

Solution: Like charts, approve a set of standards that meet basic criteria for tides and currents.

Deck Safety: What’s the benefit of teaching mechanical advantage (block and tackle)? This was the standard used to load vessels during WW II. Calculating line size - oh I have a Man Overboard (MOB), let me find the breaking strength of my line, oops you’re SOL buddy. Well, ok the basics here are important, but you get the idea.

Solution: Teach the importance of the Master creating culture that allows for mariners to grow and advance. Guide students in how to procure the correct equipment. All line manufactures give specs when you purchase product. Make sure students know the importance of the correct line size, as opposed to knowing how to calculate it based on manila line that was used on sailing ships 100 plus years ago.

I do understand the importance of oversight, but the NMC needs to be more realistic.

[starcrafttom]

Well he is right about most of it if not all of it. No one used paper charts unless they also own sundial, sextant and a lead and line for depth. Hey its cool to know how but useless on a day to day basics. How many of you can plot a track on you MFD? Change the depth alarms from 2 ft to 20 ft? set depth shading for low tide? Find your Lat and long on your MFD and know how to read it out to Coast guard? Can you spouse?

Yeah all this needs to be re written and re taught.

[starcrafttom]

Do you know how to set a MOB point on your MFD and know how to read the lat and long of that to tell CC? Can you enter a lat/long into your MFD when coast guard repeats a Mayday???

[-Waypoint-]

Being a Professional Mariner too, I can feel his pain as I read his post. No need for Celestial Navigation anymore, we have satellites instead of stars now. Computers, smart phones, and the internet with ships so automated they cannot sail without. Pretty soon I will be able to do my job from the house and Captain many ships at once! Don’t know if I’m up for that at this point of my life sailing 28 years professionally. Thanks for posting.

[JamesTXSD]

While we're talking about updating testing materials and making comparisons to the FAA and pilot training, there need to be some changes for the requirements to get a captain's license. I got my OUPV about 30 years ago, a Master License a few years after that. Not once did I have to show competence on the water. I had to take a Department of the Interior test, and that was more like getting a pilot's license (I have a multi-engine/commercial/instrument pilot's license) - besides taking a written test that was similar to the OUPV and Master tests, there was an oral, and on-the-water testing. Very extensive.

Commercial vessels have to have an annual USCG inspection, and many of these I participated in required someone for the company to go on the water with the Coast Guard Inspector to demonstrate adherence to that particular vessel's requirements. BUT, to get an OUPV or a Master License, you do not have go out on the water with a Coast Guard officer to show practical competence.

With the FAA, you have to have a written, oral, and in-the-air exam with each license upgrade and bi-annual or annual flight reviews (depending on your license). Considering things I've seen on the water, competency should be equivalent.

And while we're ranting: these mariner schools that train potential captains essentially "how to pass the test" should be re-evaluated. I went to one class to get my CPR/First Aid certification renewed - they were just finishing a Master Class. They were in there saluting each other and calling each other "Captain"... I'm all for that bit of celebration... until I sat next to a guy who had just finished that class and was waiting to take the CPR/First Aid portion, and found out he had NO log-able hours on a boat. You need 720 days on the water when you apply for that Master License, and that "testing" is good for one year. NO WAY that guy could get 720 days in a year (??!!), yet that school took his money. He had done none of the paperwork (including personal and professional mariner references, hadn't done a background check, hadn't been fingerprinted, hadn't passed the required medical exam)... yet the guy running that school handed him a "certificate", saluted him, and called him "captain."

I no longer have a dog in this fight. Happily retired. But, firmly believe there needs to be some significant updating for licensing by the USCG. The last company I worked for as a captain required us to not only have the paper charts (and tides/currents info) onboard, but also out at the helm when the boats were underway... in conjunction with having good electronic navigation equipment. And I still carried an iPad/phone with nav apps as a back-up to the back-ups.

[gstraub]

I hold a Masters license and for 8 years was in charge of a 1911 engineless sailing vessel for a museum (with a yawl boat for docking, etc.). I tend to agree with what has been said, although I do think that a professional should know the basis for everything. I always had the paper chart on deck, as it gives you a better overview of the area. I think one should know where to get all the info, and especially should know how to do passage planning...not just using the "auto route" function on an app!

As for practical experience, it just burns me up when I know someone doesn't have the sea time for a license but somehow has one. I was short of "recency" time when I first sat for mine, so I took time off work and went out every day on my boat to meet the requirements. While I agree that there should be a practical test of some sort, I am concerned about the qualifications of the testers. I've had some really great CG inspectors that really knew their stuff. I actually liked those inspections, as they help me. On the other hand, I also have had had many occasions when one would have no clue about what they were talking about, especially with a specialized vessel. I've had them ask me "what is that thing called." Most had zero sailing experience. On one inspection during the underway part, I would have failed me!

In short, yes, the required training and testing needs updating. I just cringe at what the actual outcome might be!

[starcrafttom]

While we are talking about it the test should be more boat or boat type specific. I have not and most likely will never own or run a sail boat. Spending time learning about what line goes where is a waste of my time. In a motor boat going 40mph thier is no use for paper chart as a in time navigation ad. Great for planning when on anchor for thr next day, but iam not pulling out a paper chart anymore then I am a sextant. Now MFD charts should be as much like paper as possible.

[-Waypoint-]

The USCG tests have been frozen since 1984. This is one reason why when someone gets up into the unlimited licenses, the exam rooms have Bowditch 2 published in 1984. Small boats and lighter tonnage licenses have no need for information in books like that anymore. Just ask Google but they don't allow phones in the exam rooms.

[ssobol]

US Government organizations are often behind the time. Long ago when I was doing my A&P there was lots of stuff about radial engines and not much about turbines.