Advancing onto bigger boats

I also know in the US, there is change in requirements to conform with STCW and a requirement all mariners requiring STCW endorsements be compliant by January 1, 2017. Has STCW 2010 created similar new requirements elsewhere or were other countries already requiring most of the elements?

STCW has been around by name since 1978 I think the US tickets are similar just now everything is under a unified code.

If I want to renew my COC again after 01 Jan 2017 I and many others will need to do some type of additional training course, the MCA are still to announce what this will entail

I fear it will be like when going from STCW 78 to 95, the short courses were way over subscribed and it was very difficult to get one. I was luckily doing a build so the need to get it done was not so urgent in my case.

The money masking machine called training is a lot more active theses days so it remains to be seen what happens this time.

So MCA will have a similar situation, just they haven't announced the training required yet. I can't believe the USCG actually beat them to it. For USCG to STCW the additional training for deck officers is leadership, management, teamworking and ECDIS. For engineering officers, it's management of electrical equipment, leadership and management and engine room resource management.

The classes today are easy to get into but I don't imagine they will be in 2016.

From what I understand it will be a re hash of the STCW safety courses but as nothing has been published who knows , I will renew in 2016 and be finished going to sea by the time that one runs out with any luck

Thanks for the great information and I'm sure the OP will appreciate your help. I don't think the discussion was really your qualifications as much as the dismissal of others in your absence.

Sure would be nice if we could just have one credentialing system, wouldn't it? And the rules on counting of sea time. I just try to figure out where I stand and anything beyond that don't even attempt.

I would have had a few well chosen words for that twit. The MCA will issue (sell) a CEC based on a USCG license up to unlimited chief and that trumps anything and everything in the Y class pseudo-tickets. The bottom line on the MCA Y or CECs is that unless you want to work on a UK flag vessel, you don't need to waste time or money on the MCA system.

Flag state determines the level of certification required and since the vast majority of large yachts are flagged other than UK, those Flag states are very happy to issue an endorsement that permits USCG certificate holders to serve on those yachts, even those that specify a Y1 on the manning certificate. No matter what anyone wants to think or believe, a Y1 is still no more than a USCG limited chief with a 3000 ton and 9000kW power limitation. It is highly likely that a Flag state other than UK will endorse even a USCG limited chief any horsepower (oceans) to serve as chief on a vessel that calls for a Y1. Each application is considered on the applicant's merits so there is no hard and fast rule and sometimes a well experienced applicant will benefit.

The USCG does not recognize any such thing as a yacht. Time spent on a vessel is credited based on its tonnage, area of operation, power, and manning requirements if there are any. Upgrading requires service at certain levels on certain tonnage vessels, you cannot obtain an unlimited license by sailing for years on a Boston Whaler or a sportsfish. It is not possible to upgrade above a certain level without serving in a lower level.

I serve on a USCG committee that advises on new or proposed changes to licensing and certification. We have not discussed any proposals to change the requirements for obtaining a certificate other than a recommendation to permit a very limited number of currently serving small vessel chief engineers to continue to serve in that role on their current boat without having to meet the more stringent certification proposed in future licensing schemes.

There is no way anyone new to the industry is ever going to serve as chief engineer without working in a junior position under the supervision of an engineer trained and certificated at the higher level ... there is no zero to hero beyond the absolute lowest level of unlicensed recreational vessel service, that is an MCA concept.

I had to spend a great deal of time as a 1st assistant engineer (2nd engineer in UK speak) before being allowed to upgrade to unlimited chief. That time was spent being closely watched by a succession of hard bitten and often humorless professionals on hard working ships who did not need to waste time on slackers or fools who tried to bluff their way into a higher ticket. He was the examiner and he was looking at you every day.

No one holding an unlimited license from any maritime authority got it by calling contractors on the cell phone to change oil or by lounging around the dock for 10 months a year.

We have had to meet STCW requirements for at least the last 20 years or so. If I remember correctly it was in the early 1990s when I had to take the BST and lifeboatman courses to renew or upgrade. The new courses have never stopped coming and depending on what kind of ship you work on there are specialty courses such as tankship safety, inert gas/crude oil washing, high voltage safety, RoRo Passenger Ship hull integrity, crowd control, crisis management, bridge or engine room resource management, tankerman engineer or tankerman PIC, ship security officer, and even more for working on government owned ships. It's difficult to carry all the paperwork you need these days.

One of the areas that I never know if it benefits and it's not just in this profession is refresher or revalidation certificates. I know the argument is that one forgets. But seems to me in most cases, if they've been active in the profession they've only enhanced the knowledge. It appears there are new requirements there in Basic Safety, in Survival Craft and Rescue Boat, in Firefighting and in Fast Rescue. Plus my understanding is that refresher in Medical Training varies flag by flag, some requiring and some not.

Marmot said "It's difficult to carry all the paperwork you need these days." Now, my question is that will those checking credentials in various countries, if and when anyone does, have any idea what is required and all the specifics when you're talking endorsements and rules that vary by flag state.

Yeah, well I was talking at length with the Captain of a 138 Meter freighter that was built in 2007 in China. The Captain only makes $8k a month. He works 4 months and then takes 2 months off (unpaid) to be with his family, then another 4 on, 2 off. So he takes home $64k a year and works 12-14hrs a day. He is Eastern European. The chief engineer makes slightly less than that I think he said around $7500 a month and slaves away 12 hours a day keeping this Chinese POS running, because of the way the Chinese built the ship. He also told me that going bigger is a lot more crew to manage and barely pays more money. I sure as heck wouldn't want to work on a freighter for that kind of money and trade working on yachts for that. No way. The boat is registered in one of the islands in the Carribean.

I wouldn't want to spend the next few months on the space station for what the Cosmonauts make but then again I am not qualified or certificated to do that either so the point is moot.

Space

Oh come on Marmot, you would love to be up there in the space station for a trip, no overhead cranes needed to lift out a piston or endless chains to lift out crankshaft bearings, engine stopped of course. Start the piston overhaul over Florida and be finished by the time you have gone past home 4 times. LoL.

Back in my day, yes sad to admit I am old but still proud of my unlimited combined chiefs ticket for diesel and steam, a German or British captain were paid $8000 per month, worked 4 months on and 4 months off, all paid and had a crew of 38. Then along came Polish and Yugoslav captains at $5000, 6 on and 3 off and crews reduced to 22. Then Indians and Philippines at $4000, 8 on and 2 off. Finally Romanians and Bulgarians on $1200 per month, signed on for 12 months and a ticket home probably never seen again. Crews are down to 14 or less.

The first Bulgarian Captain we hired was so pleased to be getting his $1200 as he had come from a Bulgarian registered ship making $200 per month. 3 months later I had to fire him as he refused to go to sea until his wages were increased. My company had made the mistake of leaving old contracts on board showing what the other nationalities had been paid on the same ship. He had told me that on his $1200 per month salary he would live like a king in his country, imagine his life style on $8000. I must add as well that he told me on his Bulgarian ship which was half the size of ours he had a crew of 53, ours had 17.

Again back in my day, we had what was known as professional thirds, not a license between them and no intention of ever getting one but give them a case of beer and they would strip down a 1000 KW generator and rebuild it to better than new. Those were the guys I learned the most from, yes both engineering and drinking.

Being young and cocky and a chief to boot I thought I knew it all but my very first additional training course was in senior management, boy did that open my eyes. I can not even try and remember how many courses I have been on but came away from every one having learnt something new.

In my eyes it is great to see people want to better themselves but to be a true marine engineer takes years of hands on experience, many years of college study, many lonely nights reading and learning and to go on as many courses as you can. Again back in my day on my third ship I was lucky I got to sail on our companies very first unmanned (at night) engine room ship. Crew of 36 and it carried 400 containers, yes they did have containers back then.

Now ships carry 15,000 containers with only 13 crew.

Oh yes the good old days when men of steel sailed on wooden boats but now wooden men sail on steel ships. LoL

Good luck with your quest and remember there are a few of us on here who have drilled a 3" hole for a main engine holding down bolt while only using a hand drill, a wooden 2" x 4" about 8 feet long and a piece of string.

I would trade body parts for a couple of days up there, but months ... I'll pass thanks.

When I was shipping "out of the hall" rather than working a permanent job, I would take "night jobs" as in port relief or doing day work for major engine work like piston pulls or checking bearings.The only way I liked to do piston pulls was as part of a day working gang. When major engine work was required in an American port the company would call for a gang of engineers to play grunts.

We would have a warranty engineer from the engine builder heading up the gang of 5 or 6 and we could pull and rebuild a pair of pistons and change liners in 3 days max, if the turn around was faster we worked around the clock to get it done. It was back breaking work but the challenge and the money was fantastic. Fortunately most of the heavy lifting was done with the electric overhead crane but you are right, the endless chains were the only thing that would work in the crankpits and it took a few to pull a connecting rod and bearings. Remember swinging a sledge hammer to tighten the crown bolts on a B&W piston?

I came from steamboats and gas turbines so was, and still am, in awe of the big slow speeds. But there is nothing like the sound of 200,000 pounds per hour of 900* steam roaring through the throttle of a 32,000 hp turbine.

The photos might bore some but hopefully interest others. The first shows removal of a connecting rod bearing from a crank throw. The chainfalls are holding the lower bearing cap. The round object on the lower end of the rod is a hydraulic jack used to tension the bolts holding the bearing cap and rod. The bolts are stretched by hydraulic pressure and the nut hand tightened then turned a bit more with a small hand tool. When the hydraulic pressure is released, the bolt is tensioned to spec. Both bolts are done at the same time.

The next photo shows a main bearing cap being removed from the crankcase.

The next shows a main bearing being measured for wear. That bearing had over 30,000 hours on it. It was put back in as it was within tolerance.

The last photo shows an exhaust valve assembly being removed in preparation for removing the cylinder cover to pull a piston.

Experience

I find it very enjoyable to read about the past and current lives of those more experienced then myself in the boating industry. The changes over time are remarkable at best, as is the way we learned how to do things without the interference of licensing agencies. The youth of today would do well to listen to those more knowledgable then themselves.

Steam

Yes, nothing like standing on the back side of a Foster Wheeler boiler during soot blowing, fully automatic, yeah, that worked for the first three months of its life but 10 years later when I was there as a junior engineer it was 27 turns in and 27 turns out, nine per boiler. You soon learnt to keep your feet moving to stop the soles of your shoes melting into the grating you were standing on.

Put me inside a crankcase any day of the week.

Did you ever notice that every big slow speed diesel was painted that lime green color, Sulzer, B & W, Doxford, MAN, Fiat (yes Fiat) all came that way.

I wonder what the young guys would think of rotary exhaust valves on Sulzers, reed scavenge valves on a Fiat, constant scavenge fires on MAN KZ series of engines, opposed pistons on Doxfords and not a computer in sight. One piston and rod assembly weighing more than most yacht engines. A little tweak here and there and I could coax another 2 RPM's to get up to 110 maximum. Direct drive (no transmissions) reversible 2 strokes running constantly for weeks at a time.

Marmot, if and when we meet I think we had better bring old cover-all's and plenty of hand cleaner as we will be changing a lot of pistons and doing a lot of crankcase work. Lol.

Reminiscing in this way must prove I am getting old and thinking they were the "good old days" and forgetting about how hard the work was. Give me an air conditioned control room looking out onto a pair of white and chromed common rails with computers telling you a bearing is getting hot. Beats stopping at sea and climbing into a crankcase and with hot oil dripping down, you used your hand to feel the bearing. Oh yes the good old days.

Well, the good old days are still here. Steam is getting rare but the control rooms are a lot more comfortable than even the biggest yacht version. The one shown below is a bit of a mess but the photo was taken during an all nighter doing the work shown in the previous photos. The view out the window is the top of the engine. I don't have a photo but the new ships have the control room on main deck level so there is a view of the world outside.

The console with all the lights, bells and whistles is on a steamboat with some old style automation. The other long console shot is on another steamship. The boilers were just a few feet behind your back when facing the console. The triangular gauge board is between the console and the boiler front with a couple of burners visible behind the jungle of pipes and gauge tubes. Within a couple of years all that stuff was replaced with four monitor screens and a bunch of switches.

I'm not going to get anything done this morning at this rate!

You might recognize the interior of a mud drum with desuperheater bundle.

And speaking of reed valves, here is the view inside the scavenge air receiver on a B&W 60k hp. Note the reed valve box still exists. The openings shown to the right are the air inlets to 3 cylinders. The manhole looking thing halfway down is the divider between the two sections, each supplied by its own turbo with an electric blower feeding the aft section for starting and low rpm operation. For scale, that is a walkway running down the bottom center.

There was an engineer killed a few years ago when someone closed the access door and sealed him inside the receiver. He wasn't found until they opened the receiver a week or two later. Ugh.

Times have changed

Marmot, I like your term "there is no zero to hero". It explains it all. If you want to be Chief Engineer or Captain of a larger ship, you have to work yourself up the ladder. That takes time, skill and a lot of hard work.

A little piece of poetry for the old and experienced engineers here on YF:

Hail to the Chief Engineer

The siren shrieks its farewell note
And proudly on her way
The brand new giant liner moves
In grandeur down the bay
A marvelous creation
Her builders joy and pride
The great hopes of her owners
As she floats upon the tide

The passengers in festive mood
Amid laughter, jest and quip,
With keen delight enjoying
The great ships' maiden trip.
She is sure to break the record
She'll do thirty knots or more.

Upon the Bridge the Captain proud
And like all Skippers bold,
Bedecked in gorgeous raiment
Of navy blue and gold.
All eyes are fixed upon him
It's going to his head
As he stops to drop the pilot
Then rings down FULL SPEED AHEAD.

And now begins the battle
For the trophy of the seas,
By men not clad in blue and gold,
But lowly dungarees.
On deck the scene is blithe and gay
Fair ladies, song and wine,
But hell is popping down below
Beneath the deep load line.

The CHIEF snaps out his orders
To his staff on watch below
His men obey his mandate
As about their tasks they go.
The pressure must not fluctuate
The bearings can't run hot,
The revolutions must not fail
To make that thirty knots.

At dinner on the first night out
The Skipper loudly boasts,
We'll surely break the record
As the gallant ship he toasts.
The task of breaking records
Puts no grey hairs on his head,
His contribution ended
When he rang FULL SPEED AHEAD.

Through weary days and sleepless
Nights to consummate their dream,
The ENGINEERS work ceaselessly
Till Ambrose Light's abeam.
The record has been broken
Average thirty one point four,
The Captain wears another stripe
He's been made a Commodore.
And thus he claims the credit

For that better men have done,
He boasts through press and radio
Of the victory he has won.
Neglecting ever to mention
As he prats his ballyhoo,
The men of brain, brawn and guts
Who shoved the great ship through.
The moral of this story, as you can plainly see

Is that glory goes to those that win the victory.
So keep this simple thought in mind
When you read of record trips,
That the men behind the throttles
Are the men who drive the ships.

Below a little example, what a modern engine control room on larger commercial vessels looks like today. In the future, they will look like Spaceship Enterprise .

What a way to go. horrible to think what was in his mind know what was about to happen.

I agree with timvail.
I like the pictures of your experiences.