STCW Basic Courses

[HolyNougat]

I keep hearing that we will all need to repeat our basic STWC courses every 5 years. Does anyone know how this will be applied, or if it is indeed the case?!

[Pilot Chris]

As I'm sure your aware the Manila 2010 amendments brought all this up:

This is the bit about all the electronic stuff:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/mca/mcga07-home/workingatsea/mcga-trainingandcert/ds-stc-tc-stcw-manila-amendments/ds-stc-manila-amendments-revalidation.htm

The STCW safety courses will be required for revals after 1st Jan 2017

it will be contained in MIN 423 and a MIN which is yet to be published.

Inspectors will be required to check the refreshers have been done, and can only assume it will be packaged into a "Sports week" of fun!

[YoungMariner]

It does seem to be the policy at the moment to introduce laws without actually having a plan in place to impliment them. I too am wondering what the plan is for this refresher training.

[HolyNougat]

I wonder who lobbied the IMO for this amendment... something of a cash bonanza for training centers when EVERY officer with a COC needs to come back every 5 years to 'learn' how to launch a lifeboat. Honestly, so many of these regulations just legalize robbery on behalf of service providers, it is incredible..

[bobofinga]

It's all about the money. Total nonsense.

[size4riggerboots]

To be fair, I think it's well worth doing a 1st Aid and a firefighting refresher course every 5 years: techniques and best practices change - for example I've been in a situation on ship where the C/O told us adamantly that we should do something in a particular way, because that's how he was taught in his firefighting course 20 odd years ago, whereas a year before I'd been taught something completely different in my firefighting course.

[bridgemonkey]

Should be interesting to see what happens. Personally I can see the point for refreshers in first aid, fire fighting etc as these areas develop year on year but some of the others really would just be daylight robbery.

[laura]

Best firefighting course I did was for HLO.. Heli landing officer, need to take heli deck team member course first (basically firefighting), learnt so many new techniques not just for heli firefighting was very very well taught. Yeah can see the point of some stuff but hopefully a decent refresher course will be on the cards to miss out some of the well worn stuff and focus on the things that actually need refreshing! First aid and firefighting definitely.

[laura]

Best story I heard was one guy I work with now out in Brazil, local ABs- had a fire drill and they all passed out, none of them had used BA sets before and didn't know they had to open the bottles.. dropping like flies apparently! Oof, turns out their fire courses were run a little umm differently from ours.

[YoungMariner]

Sounds similar to when I was on an unnamed cruise ship as very junior lifesaving officer, walked down the deck during a drill barking at the crews to get in the lifeboats and launch. Two female barstaff had been assigned as commander and assistant commander for one of the boats and tried to tell me something, but I was in such a rush I ignored them and told them to launch quickly. When all the other boats had been recovered, that boat was still going around in circles, before heading full speed into the side of the ship with an enormous crack of the GRP hull. We got them recovered to find almost all of the crew in tears, and on of the chefs in whites now completely dirty. Subsequent investigation discovered that the two girls had been assigned the positions because they held CPSC certificates, and when questioned said that when they completed the course in the Philippines they never went out in a boat...
I was taught a lot of lessons that day....

[laura]

Where was it I read that something like 50% of seafarers certificates were fakes... scary really, I think one temp DPO we had onboard when I was a cadet had bought his DP ticket, he never said it directly but hinted at it several times and seeing as he seemed at a complete loss operating it... well... some colleges around the world have a lot to answer for!

Saying that, I seem to remember my lifeboat course seemed to contain a disproportionate amount of rowing than... built character they said... why start the engine they said, it's only 4 knots of tidal stream they said... good times!

[Pilot Chris]

Is anyone else a bit concerned about possibly doing GMDSS every 5 years! It was bad enough learning all the telex codes first time around! and just sending it in every 5 years was just a formality before!

[HolyNougat]

oh god - not GMDSS as well...

[chris]

well I might by a flat by a training centre if I'm going to be visiting so often

[YoungMariner]

GMDSS is another one that I find unnecessarily complicated, just to keep a few ex radio officers in a job teaching this crap. Even as someone who holds a Radio Amateur license, I consider the average GMDSS setup ridiculous.