Retiring From USN looking for pointers

[ATCPinto]

I'll be retiring from a 26 year Naval career soon and transitioning to a live aboard cruising lifestyle. From research, I've found that I can use my Navy sea time to count toward the sea time requirement for a USCG Captain's license which helps tremendously to lower insurance costs. I was an aviator, and spent my senior tour as an aviation Wing commander so I never had command of a ship, but I do have lengthy sea time and was qualified in the bridge of the aircraft carrier which requires lengthy academic rigor. If there are any retired USN members who have used active duty sea time to either waive the at sea requirements for insurance or licensing, I'd love to hear from you about the process and any pointers you may have to use my professional experience and apply it constructively in the pursuit of the "next chapter." Thanks!

[Time2Go]

Hi ATC
Last year I did a few deliveries for a Captain who was good
friends with a cruiser who was a former “Airboss”
I’ll try to find out contact info and forward to you via PM
Give me a few days
Cheers
Neil

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by ATCPinto

I'll be retiring from a 26 year Naval career soon and transitioning to a live aboard cruising lifestyle. From research, I've found that I can use my Navy sea time to count toward the sea time requirement for a USCG Captain's license which helps tremendously to lower insurance costs. I was an aviator, and spent my senior tour as an aviation Wing commander so I never had command of a ship, but I do have lengthy sea time and was qualified in the bridge of the aircraft carrier which requires lengthy academic rigor. If there are any retired USN members who have used active duty sea time to either waive the at sea requirements for insurance or licensing, I'd love to hear from you about the process and any pointers you may have to use my professional experience and apply it constructively in the pursuit of the "next chapter." Thanks!

I really don't think your insurance statement is accurate.

As for military sea time: "Generally, military sea time will be creditable at a rate of 60 percent credit per each qualifying day of military service served on board a military vessel."

[ATCPinto]

My post was misleading...many insurance companies I’ve contacted state a minimum level of experience is required before insuring a boat for blue water passages. Using my professional experience to count towards that will help, as will credit “for time served” toward a captain’s license.

[ATCPinto]

Originally Posted by Time2Go

Hi ATC
Last year I did a few deliveries for a Captain who was good
friends with a cruiser who was a former “Airboss”
I’ll try to find out contact info and forward to you via PM
Give me a few days
Cheers
Neil

Thank you! As an Airboss, he’s be an aviator like me.

[redneckrob]

As a retired CG helicopter pilot my biggest piece of advice is to realize and embrace that you're retired and not in the Navy any more. There's a retired Navy chief around these parts who likes to correct people when they use the word "ceiling" instead of "overhead" or "stairs" instead of "ladder" and throws out Navy style solutions that are SOP for a 100,000 ton ship but ridiculous and impractical for a 40' sailboat. Don't be that guy.

On a related note, it's important to realize that while it seems like there is nearly 100% overlap between cruising and your former career, it's really more like 20%. Even worse is that there's an additional 25% that you think is overlap, but in fact if you apply the Navy solution it's either wrong or at best suboptimal, so you have to unlearn some of what you think you know. Celestial navigation, 100% overlap. Maintenance and repair, almost 0% overlap. Rules of the road, well they're the same rules but you're using different parts. Planning provisioning, 0% overlap. Realizing what falls into those two buckets makes your transition so much more pleasant for you, and screwing it up although rarely fatal is often unnecessarily painful.

As an aside, there's no requirement to get a captains license and no real benefit to doing so unless you plan to be employed in a job that requires it. Most people report no lower insurance premiums and some report the opposite. Just qualifying for insurance is on the honor system reporting your experience, I never had any problem with that sans captains license. And there is also a perception, although I'm not sure how accurate it is, that it's a liability to have a license if you ever are involved in a mishap because you are assigned a higher level of responsibility commiserate with your qualification, i.e. the JG that does a hard landing that damages the aircraft gets a talking to and some remedial training, the CDR potentially puts his command in jeopardy.

[slug]

Originally Posted by ATCPinto

I'll be retiring from a 26 year Naval career soon and transitioning to a live aboard cruising lifestyle. From research, I've found that I can use my Navy sea time to count toward the sea time requirement for a USCG Captain's license which helps tremendously to lower insurance costs. I was an aviator, and spent my senior tour as an aviation Wing commander so I never had command of a ship, but I do have lengthy sea time and was qualified in the bridge of the aircraft carrier which requires lengthy academic rigor. If there are any retired USN members who have used active duty sea time to either waive the at sea requirements for insurance or licensing, I'd love to hear from you about the process and any pointers you may have to use my professional experience and apply it constructively in the pursuit of the "next chapter." Thanks!

The sea time chase

Don’t know what to say , mine was 40 years ago

Best to personally visit the coast guard and have chat , find out what you have and what you need

Once clarified buy your boat and go sailing ... generate the remaining sea time , sharoen up on skills

Once everything is correct sit for your test

It’s definitely worthwhile to hold a license

The multiple choice test questions on all government tests are treacherous

Best to take s test prep coarse to learn test taking

[slug]

Originally Posted by redneckrob

As a retired CG helicopter pilot my biggest piece of advice is to realize and embrace that you're retired and not in the Navy any more. There's a retired Navy chief around these parts who likes to correct people when they use the word "ceiling" instead of "overhead" or "stairs" instead of "ladder" and throws out Navy style solutions that are SOP for a 100,000 ton ship but ridiculous and impractical for a 40' sailboat. Don't be that guy.

On a related note, it's important to realize that while it seems like there is nearly 100% overlap between cruising and your former career, it's really more like 20%. Even worse is that there's an additional 25% that you think is overlap, but in fact if you apply the Navy solution it's either wrong or at best suboptimal, so you have to unlearn some of what you think you know. Celestial navigation, 100% overlap. Maintenance and repair, almost 0% overlap. Rules of the road, well they're the same rules but you're using different parts. Planning provisioning, 0% overlap. Realizing what falls into those two buckets makes your transition so much more pleasant for you, and screwing it up although rarely fatal is often unnecessarily painful.

As an aside, there's no requirement to get a captains license and no real benefit to doing so unless you plan to be employed in a job that requires it. Most people report no lower insurance premiums and some report the opposite. Just qualifying for insurance is on the honor system reporting your experience, I never had any problem with that sans captains license. And there is also a perception, although I'm not sure how accurate it is, that it's a liability to have a license if you ever are involved in a mishap because you are assigned a higher level of responsibility commiserate with your qualification, i.e. the JG that does a hard landing that damages the aircraft gets a talking to and some remedial training, the CDR potentially puts his command in jeopardy.

Yes

If you hold a license , you know the law ... break the law and the port authorities come down hard on you

If you are not licensed you can use ignorance as your defense

Ignorance is bad news

Best to get a license and obey the law

[denverd0n]

Originally Posted by redneckrob

And there is also a perception, although I'm not sure how accurate it is, that it's a liability to have a license if you ever are involved in a mishap because you are assigned a higher level of responsibility...

I don't think it is accurate at all. I have been asking for years for someone to point me to a case where someone was assigned more responsibility, specifically because they had a USCG license, when they were not operating under the auspices of that license. No one has ever been able to.


They point to cases where a USCG captain was assigned the lion's share of the responsibility, but no evidence that it was specifically BECAUSE of the license. Or they point to a case where he was assigned more responsibility because he was the captain, except he was operating as a captain for hire at the time. Or it is a case of, I heard from a friend, whose cousin knew this guy...


I am not aware of a single, documented case where a USCG licensed captain was operating just as a recreational boater, got into some sort of incident, and was assigned greater liability specifically because he had a captain's license at the time.


If anyone knows of such a case, I would be very interested in links to the details.

[Tingum]

Go to back copies of the Triton. About two weeks ago there was an article about a retired Commander, destroyer Capt., who had just completed his CG masters license and was working as crew on a Megayacht.

[redneckrob]

Originally Posted by denverd0n

I don't think it is accurate at all. I have been asking for years for someone to point me to a case where someone was assigned more responsibility, specifically because they had a USCG license, when they were not operating under the auspices of that license. No one has ever been able to.


They point to cases where a USCG captain was assigned the lion's share of the responsibility, but no evidence that it was specifically BECAUSE of the license. Or they point to a case where he was assigned more responsibility because he was the captain, except he was operating as a captain for hire at the time. Or it is a case of, I heard from a friend, whose cousin knew this guy...


I am not aware of a single, documented case where a USCG licensed captain was operating just as a recreational boater, got into some sort of incident, and was assigned greater liability specifically because he had a captain's license at the time.


If anyone knows of such a case, I would be very interested in links to the details.

I'd be curious to see any cases as well, as I said it's one of those things that's repeated a lot but I'm not sure how accurate it is. It is a little tough to disambiguate what is often a very subjective ruling, i.e. the licensed guy gets hammered and while it's not stated that's the reason why, the people exercising discretion in their decision might have factored that into their internal decision making, consciously or not.

[Bill O]

Originally Posted by slug

If you are not licensed you can use ignorance as your defense

I'll take this out of context, but if everyone is using "ignorance" more and more these days, doesn't that make it the "norm"?? While it wasn't a defensible argument in the court of law many years ago, it unfortunately can work out better if you plead, "I didn't know that"!

Totally not advocating it, but many don't read any more and if its not on FB, youtube, or other social media they won't learn what they really need to do/know.

[JOHNMARDALL]

You don't say how much time you've spent on small boats or whether you're thinking of a power boat or sailboat, but you do say cruising, so the USCG license is not necessary. I suggest that your first step is too spend as much time as possible on a variety of cruising boats and with that experience, decide on the criteria for your own boat, including whether it's going to be new or used. Once you've bought the boat, you can have a wonderful year or two cruising the Chesapeake Bay and learning everything that's good about the boat and everything that needs to be repaired or replaced. Be aware that if you buy a used boat and intend to refit, repair or mantain it yourself, the work and time involved will be much more than you estimate, and your life will be working on the boat as much as cruising it. For me that's a good life but some other people see it very differently.


Good luck
John Mardall
retired from Vetus Maxwell Boat Equipment.

[dlane1181]

Congrats on retiring after a successful Navy career; welcome to the USN (Ret.) club. I’m 2 years ahead of you.

Regarding your question about creditable sea time, I just went through that drill during the pre-enrollment process at Chapman’s School of Seamanship. I too was an aviator for part of my career and NATOPS Aviator Flight Log indicates we were deployed and at sea for ~6 months per year for the 3 years I was in an embarked squadron. Unfortunately, none of that time is creditable towards a USCG license because I was not directly involved with seamanship and navigation of the vessel.

You mentioned qualifying for a bridge watch. For sure, any time you spent training for or standing bridge watches would be creditable. I think Air Boss time would be dubious, but worth discussing with someone in the licensing division at USCG. Time served as an embarked aviator is likely not creditable, unless you were trying to qualify on the bridge as a JO, too. (I tried that for about 2 weeks, but could not burn the candle at both ends.

Regarding insurance and a captain’s license, please post a reference about that it you can. My insurance company did/does not offer a discount; but some might. I do receive a small discount for being a SSCA Commodore (SSCA.org). I think the best ticket for a discount is the RYA Offshore Yachtmaster rating.

Please PM me if you have questions or need additional information.

[Corsair 2]

Hello CAG. If you'll send me a note, I'll PM you my experience/recommendations. Ex A7 driver. I took up sailing about 4 years ago. pcjlaine@gmail.com