Here's a quick guide about a good deck officer route for Australians and Kiwis who have made their livelihood on overseas yachts outside of the Tasman. I only found out about this in my 4th year working overseas, so I thought it couldn't hurt to share.
Anyone who has done a ticket or even looked at getting qualified knows it's not possible to get equivalent recognition with MCA with a ticket from AMSA. Similarly, once you have decided to rather do the UK MCA route, you are stuck in the same loop of AMSA not wanting to recognise your overseas certificates off the bat without a few bridging courses and more dollars.
In comes NZ Maritime to mediate between the two, at least for the first step in your deck officer journey if you're looking at your OOW or Chief Mates GT<3000. If you complete your Chief Mate Yachts with NZ Maritime, you are instantly eligible for the equivalent AMSA Certificate and UK MCA Flag State Endorsement / Certificate of Equivalent Competency. See Annex A of the MCA MSN.
The one kicker with the NZ Maritime route is that your sea service needs to be commercial (or up to that standard if you're private - read on) to qualify to study with them. There are varying requirements, but read page 4 and 5 of the Chief Mate Yachts document to see where you stand. This route is still an option if you are on a private vessel but you need to meet some requirements. Anyone operating privately on a GT 500+ vessel with some sort of Document of Compliance from your Flag State in place should qualify, but check with NZ Maritime and your vessel first before you cancel all your Warsash courses.
Lastly, the one thing that cannot be ignored from the NZ Maritime route is the cost. When I was was totalling up the cost of my courses from completing my Yachtmaster to getting my Chief Mates, the course fees alone was totalling €25,000. The duration for going the European or UK MCA route is around 3-4 months depending on how you schedule your courses. Then comes accommodation, food, inevitable Friday beers... you work it out.
If you are an Aussie or Kiwi (hold a passport for either) then the cost for the Diploma that leads to your Chief Mates is a staggering USD$4,700 at today's exchange rate. Thank you government subsidies. The reason it's that much cheaper is because you are doing it through a full on university, not an independent school. There is a slight drawback in that the course duration runs for 5 months and starts in late April and finishes in late September, so you have no flexibility in choosing when to do it.
However, still an incredible option if you are eligible to do it, seeing as your total costs for studying (living + courses) will probably still come in under just the cost of the courses alone in the UK/Europe and you will end up with a CoC that you can take across the world (not USCG, they're special) with bridging. In my head, the only viable option if you ever consider yourself retiring from international yachting and moving back to Aus/NZ.
You can check out the course through the Uni here. And yes, there is room for succession, as you will see in the link that you can continue on to get your Masters (3000) with them too.
I hope you found this useful, I'll continue to update the guide with any questions as they come up!
Are you currently looking for a solution to record your days at sea, so that you can possibly get a CoC like this in the future, have you considered Sea Service? It's a simplified mobile platform that helps you record a detailed service record in less than 30 seconds a day, like when it's tea time at 3. Check out a really quick overview on our Instagram @seaserviceapp.
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