Endorsements to your certificate of competency

[John Arton]

To sail on an oil tanker you need an endorsement to your C.O.C stating you are qualified to do so. The endorsement will be in either supervisor or management level for those holding mates or masters certs. The endorsement requires attendance at a certified oil tanker course plus time served on board.
There are similar endorsements for those sailing on chemical tankers and gas tankers. These endorsements are valid for 5 years and automatically renew so long as you continue serving on those classes of vessels.
As far as I am aware serving on passenger vessels including RO-RO ferries that carry passengers, those serving on them have to have an endorsement stating they are qualified in crowd control.
The days when you say and passed your tickets, be it 2nd mates, mates or master's then were sent off to join any ship your company wanted you too or any ship you could get from the pool or the likes of a Manning agency are long gone. These days to gain employment you need those endorsements and the courses that are run to enable you to gain them don't come cheaply.
So I wonder if there are anyone sailing these days who doesn't have one or more of these endorsements in the back of their certificate.
Rgds
J.A.

[J Gowers]

Back in the 70s/80s I had the three endorsements Oil, Chemical and Gas although these have long expired. I went into the drilling industry in the late 80s and managed to get my Chief's ticket renewed every five years for the next 26 years the MCA accepted sea time on drilling rigs and most of them I was on were self propelled and DP. I retired about five years ago and was going to renew my ticket at that time just in case any ad hoc work came up but the cost of doing the courses made it not worthwhile. MCA wanted me the do refresher courses in Lifeboats, First Aid, Security and High Voltage (required now to work on rigs or ships with a high voltage busbar) it was going to cost me a more than £2K so I gave up and put the ticket back in the drawer where it sits alongside my first ticket, various discharge books British, Liberian, Vanuatu and Panama along with every passport I was ever issued. I was lucky in that the shipping and drilling companies paid for any required courses but it is expensive if you have to do these of your own back.

[Graham Shaw]

Well I took both my 2nd Mates and 1st Mates FG 'tickets' (or CoC's-Certificates of Competency as we should really call them) under the 'traditional U.K.DTI system like most of us here of our age before the present STCW convention was proposed back in 1978.Seems so long ago now ! I think the only endorsements back then were for engineers who required a Steam endorsement on their Motor ticket for sailing in a steam ship. There were also Dispensations for engineers to sail in a higher capacity if temporarily short handed I think,but maybe you engineers can put me right on that.

When I at first read today what is required for the STCW convention of 2010 for example I felt glad that I didn't have to undergo probably tiresome training in,for example, Leadership,Management & Teamwork,Dynamic Positioning Systems or Sailing in Polar Water Training...but then I thought wait a minute ...I looked in my Dis A. Book and saw all the different qualifications and certificates recorded therein that I had to take and pass along the way to becoming competent in the 1970's ; For 2nd Mates I had EDH,Lifeboat Proficiency, a Survival course,Radio Telephony,Electronic Navaids,Radar Observer,Gyro Maintenance,Firefighting, and First Aid at Sea,and for Mates,Radar Simulator and Ship Captains Medical course---so I thought,we almost had as much to learn as they do now. It was a bit of a hassle if you didn't live near a college or port ,and usually had to be taken in your leave,but at least back then the company paid for all your courses-plus reasonable 'realistic ' expenses !

Crowd Control Training?..... I didn't need that course--all that breakbulk cargo in the holds was neatly stowed and safely lashed down-they were certainly not going anywhere!

[j.sabourn]

Talking to a younger man who not so far back did his IR ( intergrated Rating) course , the same as your GP . Said they were taught how to keep a Radar watch among other things. Going much further back can remember an old fireman telling me how he had to do a course which consisted of a mock up of a furnace front , a shovel and a heap of coal and had to show how he would feed the furnace. On completion of the coal the next man would go to the other side of the furnace door and faced the same same door and do exactly the same thing from the other side. There was a member who did a course in Newcastle on something similar ,if he reads this ,is it correct ?
Just shows science has no bounds . JS.

PS Did the crowd control have anything to do with official log books . .? JS..

[Graham Shaw]

.....and then don't forget to do your Cyber Security On Board Course,your Fatigue Awareness and Management Course,your Behaviour Based Safety Course,and oh,your Marine Environmental Awareness Course,of course!
Now after all that you will have just a months sea time to get the feel of being at sea before taking your 2nd Mates /1st Mates/Masters/Extra Masters/B.Sc (Nautical Studies /Motor and Steam Engineers Combined ticket,at the tender age of 65 just ,before taking retirement,after naturally having completed taking your Retirement for Seafarers Options course with special Emphasis on Resting one's Brain.


A Seagoing Career is not what it was,is it?

[j.sabourn]

All these endorsements are all well and good as long as you don’t get one on your driving licence . JS

[happy daze john in oz]

And pray tell what then happened to the coal after a day of back and forth, no doubt wearing out the shovel in the process.

[j.sabourn]

Went back in someone’s bath ? JS

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi John A.
I don't know much about what a watch officer had to have, but when I joined the Baron Kilmarnock in 52 she was brand new and the first and only tanker in the Baron fleet. I remember that the Chief mate was on top of everything along with the pumpman, but the Skipper kept hovering around to start with when we were loading or discharging. Possibly his first tanker, we were out for eleven months, so he would have been proficient after that I guess.
Des

[j.sabourn]

Des I worked for John I. Jacobs one of the oldest privately owned tanker company’s going others reckoned . I was on their ore carriers to start with , then they had a big super tanker built which lay up one of the Norwegian fiords for all of its life span with Jacobs. However believe I was being groomed for the future on this vessel , so had to get Tanker experience . I joined the Hollywood ( ship not movie city ) up in Bangla Mashur in Iran as 1 mate, at that time she had 4 mates which included a chief officer on daywork only. We loaded a full cargo of Naptha for Japan which I assume was for the yanks as the Vietnam war was going strong. Arriving Japan the Chief Officer was released and I was promoted, however they didn’t provide a 1 mate , I was still it as well. Unfortuanetley the pumpman was also paid off . Fortuanetley the chief engineer and the 3 mate were old tanker men and I got by. The next cargo was also naptha , except for the 4 x tanks forward being paraffin and kerosene . 6 months there , then flew down to Oz after being delayed in Iran due to the deposing of the Shah , and did 6 months , 3 of which was on the kiwi coast Whangerai down as far as Bluff and all the ports in between on the other tanker they had the Laurelwood . NZ in the early 70s brought back many happy memory’s of the 50s. Cheers JS