STCW and CG approved Vessel Security Officer Required!!!!!
For licensed mariners there will be a new requirement to their STCW. The Vessel Security Officer (VSO) course and certificate will need to be printed on your STCW by the Coast Guard. This means that you HAD to have taken a Coast Guard approved VSO course to get it printed on your STCW. If you have already taken the course, contact the school in which you took it, and the date you took it and make sure your certificate is in compliance. I know some schools were offering the course as a company requirment and it was NOT approved by the Coast Guard at that time. Your VSO certificate should say it in the title. You might have to take the course over, or a refresher if you are going back to the same school. Any experience on this would be appreciated.
For the rules and regulations from the Coast Guard, and related questions. Goto
http://www.uscg.mil/nmc/ldcr_faq.asp as well as the Federal Register at
Leonard Lambert
October 9th, 2008 at 3:03 am
Cal Maritime was the first to offer the approved version of this class. It took a lot to convince my company that the flight to San Francisco would eventually save them money but I’m glad my prediction came true.
Great blog, I look forward to reading more!
October 9th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
It is great to hear success stories in obtaining the right certificates. Our maritime industry keeps piling more and more of them on us!!
November 30th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
The longer I’m in the maritime business, the less I’m qualified to do– or so my most recent experience with the USCG would seem to indicate. Today I began the process of gathering my VSO certificates and other documentation to get my STCW certificate endorsed in accordance with new regulation. Licensed officers who are designated Vessel Security Officer must provide evidence of approved VSO training and have their STCW certificate endorsed before July of next year. After reviewing the USCG’s NMC website, I find that none of the three courses that I’ve taken since implementation of MTSA / ISPS are accepted by USCG. One course misses the acceptable date range by 2 months. I hold VSO / SSO certificates from Calhoon MEBA Engineering School and MSC Training Center East as well a PFSO certificate from Seebald Associates— reputable providers who deal with the USCG on an ongoing basis.
A civilian employee at the USCG Boston REC told me after hearing my story that he would have no problem using his discretion to endorse my STCW based on my training, experience and sea time– however, that discretion is no longer allowed at the REC’s; everything must go through the NMC in West Virgina.
Additionally, now I have to worry that if I start the process now, I won’t get my endorsement back from NMC in time to return to work in January. My conversation with the staffer who answered the phone at NMC was not encouraging with regard to timeliness of application processing.
How is it that, despite our good faith efforts to be compliant with the ever-shifting regulatory regime, we can be subject to retroactive certification and training requirements that entail expensive, time-consuming and superfluous training? How is it that the courses were deemed acceptable at the time that MTSA and ISPS was being implemented? Why are we at the mercy of a plodding Kafka-esque bureacracy (Think TWIC) that seriously impacts our ability to make a Iiving in an already challenging field? I do NOT want to squander another week of my vacation to take another course on a subject that I could teach for the sake of another certificate to add to my already bulging license portfolio.
I’ve got similar issues with Tankerman PIC LG and DL endorsements as well— any one else with similar experience?
More importantly, does anyone have a solution so that I can continue to pursue my sea-going career without reverting to full-time cadet status?