Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
This winter, thousands of experienced boaters will strive to get a U.S. Coast Guard captain’s license. The diversity of those who take on this quest will be equal to the assortment of their compelling reasons for getting the credential. Men, women, high school kids, senior citizens and every age in between will be represented. Some will want the license so that they can run para-sail boats, some water-taxis, some sport fishing charters, some will want to take out hunting parties, some to operate fire and rescue boats, tug, tow, or tour boats, and some just because they always wanted the opportunity to be called “captain”by their peers.
Officially known as a “Merchant Mariners Credential,” a captain’s license cannot be had just by filling out a few forms and paying a fee. Before anyone can even qualify for the license they must be able to document a minimum of 360 trips on the water or 720 trips for a higher-grade “Masters” license. The license is issued by the U.S. Coast Guard, and besides the requirement of sea-time, applicants must also pass a rather extensive written exam, a drug test, a CPR course, a First Aid course and a physical, all of which come with a hefty dose of paperwork which had better be filled out properly or else the final application will do anything but “sail through” unscathed. Issuing a captain’s license is pretty serious stuff and not taken lightly by the Coast Guard review officers who don’t cut corners or breaks for anyone!
Because learning the material, taking the test and getting all the paperwork properly filled out can be somewhat daunting, a lot of folks take time in the off-season to enroll in a captain’s class that will help them through the process. That’s what I did way back in 1986 and I’m not ashamed to say that if hadn’t done it that way I probably never would have acquired my license in the first place. In 2004 I was hired by the 3B’s Captain’s School as an instructor for some of their classes which I now do in the fall and early winter before I leave for Florida at the end of January. After more than a decade of teaching this class, I’ve learned that helping folks through the process of getting their license is one of the most rewarding “indoor” jobs I’ve ever had.
One of the best parts of teaching these classes is when I get to tell folks that they’ve successfully passed the exam. I’ve seen such news bring tears to the eyes of grown men and others get so weak in the knees that they have to sit down. For some people, getting a captain’s license can be a life changing event! The flip side of that is when I have to tell someone that they didn’t pass the exam, not that it means they’ll never get a license, but it does mean that for them it’s back to the books for a while.
Since this is the time of the year when a lot of folks are probably contemplating enrolling in a captain’s course this fall or winter, I thought I’d throw out a few suggestions and observations I’ve seen from the front of the classroom:
You will need to study!
There are no short-cut classes, where you pay your money, kick-back, listen to a few days of lectures and then get your license. These courses require that students attend every class and spend a good bit of quality study time at home between classes. This is one area where younger folks sometimes have a bit of an advantage because many are either still in their school years or close enough to them that they are still in “learning mode”, so cracking the books and studying for an exam is second nature. Those who have been away from school for a while might struggle a bit more with the bookwork, but they usually have an advantage of more real-time experience on the water.
Take the course seriously!
While some people take a captain’s course just for “something to do,” for most, getting the license is an essential step towards a new career. So the commitment they make in time and tuition fees means that they’re very serious about getting through the class and getting their license and they don’t want a lot of nonsense going on while they’re trying to learn. We do try to keep the atmosphere light and the learning fun, but this is no place for class clowns who are disruptive to the learning process of the other students.
Set the time aside and get it done!
The classes I teach run over three consecutive weekends, so from start to finish it covers a little more than a two week swath on the calendar. Every student has a life outside of class that might include daily commitments to work and family or pastimes such as hunting or fishing, sports, hobbies, happy hours - whatever. Regardless of their importance, all of these activities are diversions from studying and learning the class material, so the more of them that a student can put on hold for a couple weeks, the better chances they have of passing the course. I know this because traditionally, those who do the worst on the final exams are almost always the ones who tell me that they “had so much going on during the week” that they “had trouble finding time to study.” It’s only a two-week spread, so those who are really serious about getting their license need to put the rest of their life on hold for that little bit of time and commit to getting the job done.
There’s going to be a lot of paperwork!
The class itself is pretty straightforward. Just learn the material and pass the test. But passing the test is just one step in getting a Coast Guard license. There’s still a lot of other hoops the Coast Guard has applicants jump through before they issue a license. In class we review all the paperwork and help students with it as best we can but they’ve got to shuffle most of the paper on their own.
Testing is serious and formal!
The exam has five parts and is given on the last day of the course. There’s no time limit on the test. Some students will breeze through it in two hours and others will take five. The time difference is not a reflection on who knows the material better, it’s just that some students take their time and are more meticulous at double and triple checking their answers than others. Students can come back at a later date and re-test just the sections of the test that they don’t pass, but after three failed attempts they will have to wait a year and re-test everything over again.
I’ve had students tell me afterwards that passing the captain’s class was one of the toughest things they’ve ever done. However, in the same breath I can also say that even more of them have said that the course was one of the most rewarding and informative things they’ve ever taken and, regardless of the license, they often say that what they learned made them a safer and much more competent boater, which is exactly what I like to hear!
So I guess that’s it. With this being the last issue of the Coastal Fisherman we won’t be meeting like this again until next spring. I really hope your fall and winter season is a great one! As for me, I’ll be running charters into the fall around here, doing a couple of the aforementioned captain’s classes in November and January and hunting as much as possible in between. From February through the end of April I’ll be in the lower Florida Keys guiding folks who come down to escape the cold weather and tug on a few tarpon, barracuda and any of the other critters that prowl the shallow flats. And if you get tired of shoveling snow up here you’re certainly invited to join us under the coconut palms where the only ice you have to worry about is what’s in your glass!
Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and Captain of the charter boat, “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center.
