100Ton Licensed Captain - Not Hired as captain

Hi,

That is what happens when a conversation by PM gets regurgitated in the main forum.

I think Carl will have to re think YF's motto after what I have read here today.

"We Know Big Boats" is obviously misleading for the majority of the membership here and may give browsers a false impression.

You didn't need the PM to understand the OP's concern and the reason for his post.
As for YF's motto, that takes us back to the thread about what constitutes a yacht, and big is a relative term. I always caution people about bringing their "big" boats to Ft. Lauderdale because they shrink fast as soon as they come under the 17th Street bridge. I brought a 60' Sunseeker down once We came under the bridge and saw another Sunseeker. The owner asked if it was a 50'. I said 'No, it's an 80'. at his marina in NY and going down the coast his boat was pretty impressive. Not so much in So. Florida. I'm sure M/Y A made a few otherwise respectable boats seem rather puny. Just wait till Azzam makes an appearance. If YF wants to restrict discussion to only the biggest yachts their membership could end up a half-dozen owners and crews in the end. I'm sure the captains of A and Azzam don't consider 150' yachts very "big"

what is all this talk referring to ''captain''....if a man hires you to run his boat,does that give you some super power over him because you have a ticket in your pocket..I don't think so..unless there is a contract or a C.G. regulation pertaining to freight,passengers,tonnage or you are signed on the Doc. as master,you have as much pull as the washdown boy......

Sorry again, but if I'm hired as master of a vessel that is my boat. The owner can fire me or I can quit, but until either happens that vessel is my responsibility. Verbal agreements are binding.

If the mate is taking over because the captain(owner) isn't paying attention. Then, I would pretty much assume the owner (captain) is operating the vessel in a reckless or unsafe manner if the person hired as a mate feels the need to grab the steering wheel from the owner.

I was told by several people enlisted in the US Coast Guard that the person that holds the highest license is ultimately responsible. In this case the mate who wasn't hired or paid as a Captain. That's my assumption and what I've been told.

That kind of reasoning and foundation for that reasoning is part of what I was talking about when I made the toy boat comment.

What those enlisted people told you is absolute horsepucky. The fact that a "captain" will take legal and operational advice from some guy in a web forum or a bar is what separates the toy captains from the professionals who know (or at least are supposed to know) what the laws are and where to find specific answers to knotty questions such as the OP put forward.

It really has not much to do with the size of the boat as much as it does the training and education of the individual who calls himself "captain." The level of professionalism is exponentially greater as the boat size increases and you won't find many big boat captains asking that type of question and you won't find many providing the type of answers we have seen posted to this thread.

You don't need to meet any particular standard of license level or boat size to contribute here but I for one expect those who call themselves captains to have some degree of knowledge of maritime law and regulations and where to find information that limits or otherwise regulates their activities. Especially before they post what they believe is a fact or what some guy in a bar told them is a fact when they - in fact - have never bothered to find out what the real facts are.

You might want to add: '...Coast Guard that the (hired) person that holds...' before this thread degrades back into a discussion of hypotheticals about license holding passengers again.

Would you care to enlighten the less learned or are you just here to criticize. You've chimed in several times saying that everybody should have all answers all the time, yet you haven't given anyone the benefit of your knowledge.

Wrong again, Ed. I gave the OP the correct answer on another forum. I provided a portion of it in post #3 here.

And just for grins, when he first posted that same question on a forum targeted at megayacht crews it was an echo of the same question that seems to get asked with each new year's crop of 100 tonners that I emailed the local MSO and very quickly received a very well crafted response in writing.

I have no hesitation to criticize those who claim the title of captain but have little knowledge of what duties and responsibilities attach to the title and the certificate. There is no end of reinforcement of my low opinion of many of them. If you want to call yourself a professional, then learn to be a professional and stop posting rumor and bar talk as maritime law and procedure. All that does is reinforce the garbage that the next bunch of toy captains pass along as gospel to other pretenders and no one benefits.

Marmot, you're brilliant. You're a walking encyclopedia. Truely. I'm envious. You have a great mind for technical knowledge. Most of us don't. What we do is know what we can; know where to get the answers to what we don't know, and try to err on the safe side. One of the places we come for answers is YF. YF has the greatest boating knowledge based on experience of any I know (at all levels).
Justice Scalia is a brilliant legal mind. That doesn't mean you don't have some very professional judges in the local family courts, even though they don't have a fraction of Scalia's legal knowledge. As in any professions there are many professional as well as quality levels in the maritime industries.

You told this captain to contact the MOS. I'm sure it's in the back of my mind somewhere, but after 25 years in this business I can't think what an MOS is. Why not just give him the answer that you already got? Maybe tell him, and everybody, how they can get answers to questions like this.

He did, already.

Surely, you can Google

A licensed Captain

Many years ago (when still being young and crispy ) one of my favorite hobbies was to participate on sail boat races. Ambitious as I was, I owned and used a pedigree 60 ft racing boat for that purpose. The racing crew concisted mostly of friends of mine from our sailing club and my sons.

I must admit, we have won one or the other race. This fact must have upset the regatta committee of one of the most famous north sea regattas and they changed the rules. On the next race (winning again), my boat was disqalified, because the skipper (me ) had a full commercial ticket. The new rule stated this fact as being unfair (In Germany, for boats under 24 meters in lengths, you only need a recreational ticket (leasure boat licence) which is easy to obtain). I must say, I was not amused.

In the next year, we signed in again for that race. The official skipper was my 18 year old son with his little leasure boat license. The rest of the total crew of 20 sailors concisted of 19 full commercial captains including the well known skipper of a famous large 3 masted square rigger. We ended second place, being totally legal and had a lot of fun. I still have lot of fun, looking at that picture; my son in front of the mustered crew of 19 old salt necks .

Will say, the degree of qualification of license holder(s) on board of a vessel does not count. If the qualification of the skipper, stated and signed in the ships / boats log book, is sufficient for that boat and the area and type of operation, he is in charge and responsible. The action of any crew member, regardless of his qualification, taking over command of the vessel, unless the assigned skipper is incapacitated, is concidered mutiny. If an owner hires a fully qualified skipper as deckhand and takes his knowledge for granted, this skipper can not be blamed for anything !!!

The owner of the vessel can remove the skipper from his command in the next harbour but not in open seas, unless the assigned skipper resigns on his own decision and the safe manning list can still be fulfilled.

Thank you for making my point so well. Remember my comment about how it is sometimes best to just remain silent?

The MSO to which I directed the gentleman for the second time in post #3 is the USCG Marine Safety Office. It is now often called the Prevention department of the sector but if you ask for the MSO or Google the USCG MSO you will be directed to the correct office.


As is pointed out above, I suggest those who are riddled with worry, but not enough to obtain an official finding, might benefit from contacting MOPS to acquire license insurance.

Where'd that first sentence (MOS? Isn't that some kind of military job description or something?) come from in quoting me? That aside, Thanks for spelling that out. Yep Marine Safety Office was in the back of my mind, but in 25 years I've never had reason to contact them. This thread could probably have been about 70 posts shorter had someone said 'I contacted the USCG Marine Safety Office and their answer was..............' I'll try to contact them today with the question and post their reponse, if nobody else will, so that others won't have to wade through 150 posts for the answer.
Insurance will do little good unless the buyer is good at reading legaleze to figure out exactly what it does and doesn't cover. The devil is in the details.

Well, now that we all know what the MSO is it appears that it's now the MSC. I've posed this question: "A comon question among small boat captains. If the holder of a Master's license is hired to work on a private boat, what is his responsibility / liability if an unlicensed helmsman (boat's owner) causes damage or injury through reckless behavior? " Will report back with their answer. ("2 - 3 business days")

I was wondering where that went! It was supposed to be in my text as an edit but never seemed to show up.

Yes, this thread could have been about 70 posts shorter if the OP had simply contacted the people will make the decision about who gets blamed for what. He was advised to contact the MSO when he posted his initial question on another yachting forum. That was the source of my question to him about his shopping around for an answer.

You don't need to be a lawyer with MOPS, they are lawyers who defend licenses ... if you were a lawyer you might not need them, but again you might.

And finally, I would contact these folks : https://homeport.uscg.mil/mycg/port...BV_EngineID=cccfadfkgffgjggcfngcfkmdfhfdfgn.0 before asking the guys who tell you which valves are approved for what application on what vessel.

Thank you for your support. I won't claim brilliance but I will say that I am smart enough and experienced enough to avoid telling some guy what the CG, a plaintiff's attorney, or the local polizei will do in any given circumstance.

The prudent mariner will understand that the best source of information is usually not another mariner.

Think about it for minute, Ed.

Unfortunately every Sector will give a different answer. They will frame an answer to match what they interpret as the question. If I posted the response I got from Miami and some guy in New York said that he read something on the internet that said such and such he would probably get the rolling eyes response from the cops and Coasties.

If you know enough about your license, why you were hired, and have something in writing that details your duties and responsibilities to your employer and provide that as part of the question then you will receive a written response that will stand up in front of the Administrative Law Judge (the guy who will rip your ticket to shreds before your eyes) a hell of a lot taller than "I read on a yachting forum that ..."

I've been following this post a bit, and i think a lot of us have been in this situation before, either when we were just starting out, or maybe just looking for some "pick me up" work.

However, I would never sign up for a gig like this if I knew a few things in advance. 1) If the guy were going to hire me strictly for using my license, and pay me as a deckhand, then there is no way that I would agree to that. 2) And I think that I've followed it correctly, but if you are the license holder, and even though you aren't hired as Captain, your still going to be the responsible party because you have the "professional" endorsement. I would be ok with the owner operating the boat, but you can bet that I'd be sitting real close to them in case of ROC, or coming around the docks. 3) There is nothing worse than having someone driving the boat, that probably doesn't know all the rules and throws a wake past a dock, or down the ICW, only to be called over 16 or be approached at the marina and get your a$% chewed out, even though you weren't operating. (As you can tell, this actually happened to me a few years back going through NC and I was down doing an hourly engine check and the owner had the controls for about 10-12 minutes.)

Do you have a single example of a CG license action or civil citation to back up that statement?