Findings Specific To Unlimited Licensed Mariners

Current Mariner License Status

About 85% of UL Mariners report that they have an active USCG issued license and an additional 13% report that they have an inactive license (renewed for continuity).

About two out of three UL Mariners (64%) report that they are either at the top of their license or that they will upgrade at some point in the future (see Table 11).

Deck Licenses and Sailing Experience

The population of UL Mariners is fairly evenly divided by type of license with 47% holding a deck license, 49% holding an engineer license, and 4% holding both.

The most frequently reported type of Deck license held by UL Mariners is Master of vessels of any gross tonnage (38%) and the least frequently reported is Mate of limited tonnage vessels (2%) (see Table 12).

About three out of four (73%) UL Mariners holding a license as a First Class Pilot report that they have sailed under that license during the last four years (see Table 13). However, for the remaining Deck licenses, the majority of UL Mariners report that they have either never sailed under that license or their last experience is prior to 1999 (ranging from 50% to 76%, indicating that 50% or less of mariners report experience during the last four years).

UL Mariners holding a Deck license were also asked to describe the recency of their sailing experience on nine specific types of vessels. For six of the nine vessel types, less than 10% of UL Mariners reported sailing experience in the last four years (see Table 14). The four vessels showing the highest levels of recent experience include tankers (24%), container ships (19%), roll-on/roll-off (17%), and oil-gas-mineral vessels (10%).

An additional 26% of UL Mariners reported that their most recent sailing experience had been on a type of vessel not listed in the survey. In their written comments, a number of mariners identified those other vessels. The most frequently mentioned were casino/cruise ships, ferryboats, hopper dredges, mobile offshore drilling units (MODU), research vessels, supply boats, and tugboats.

Engineer Licenses and Sailing Experience

UL Mariners who hold an Engineer’s License are most likely to work on motor or steam vessels. For example, 85% of UL Mariners who hold a license as Chief Engineer for a motor vessel also hold a license for one of the four engineering positions on a steam vessel. Table 15 provides the percentages of all Engineers who reported holding a particular Engineer License.

UL Mariners holding one of the following four engineering licenses are most likely to report recent (within the last four years) sailing experience: Second Assistant Engineer for a motor vessel of any horsepower (51%), Chief Engineer for a motor vessel of limited horsepower (45%) or any horsepower (44%), and Assistant Engineer for a motor vessel of limited horsepower (see Table 16). For the remaining engineer licenses, the majority of UL Mariners report that they have either never sailed under that license or their last experience is prior to 1999 (ranging from 61% to 97%, indicating that 39% or less of mariners report experience during the last four years).

UL Mariners holding an engineer’s license were also asked to describe the recency of their sailing experience on nine specific types of vessels. Less than 10% of UL Mariners reported sailing experience in the last four years for five out of nine vessel types (see Table 17). The four vessels showing the highest level of recent experience include tankers (23%), container ships (19%), RoRo (16%), and bulk vessels (13%). An additional 23% of UL Mariners reported that their most recent engineering sailing experience had been on a type of vessel not listed in the survey.