NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Naval Quartermasters and M.M.Officers
From: Doug Royer
Date: 2004 Feb 2, 15:09 -0800
From: Doug Royer
Date: 2004 Feb 2, 15:09 -0800
Stacy, No,I didn't take your comments wrong.I thought them very enlightening and truthful.I only included what I wrote to show that on a merchy the personnel are less per watch and one cannot concentrate on ones M.O.S. to the exclusion of other tasks per watch period. I also wanted to convey it is much more personnel and discipline intensive to sychronise the movements of many vessels on a close track for extended periods.We most definetly don't have to do that.And that is why I said "no thanks pal!". -----Original Message----- From: Navigation Mailing List [mailto:NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM]On Behalf Of Stacy Hanna Sent: Monday, February 02, 2004 14:27 To: NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM Subject: Re: Naval Quartermasters and M.M.Officers Doug, Currently Naval personnel (or Coast Guard for that matter) are not required to hold Coast Guard licenses. In fact very few people in the Navy would qualify for a Coast Guard license that would enable them to stand the same watches on a merchant ship. One of the main reasons for this is because we do not meet STCW requirements. The Coast Guard is currently reviewing Naval training to determine which of our courses should count for equivalency to STCW approved training. For example the Coast Guard has determined that Basic Training (boot camp) meets the requirements for STCW basic safety, with the exception of exposure suit training. Hopefully it won't be long before we can get credit for our training and it will be common for Naval personnel to be licensed(although legally the crew of a Navy ship still won't be required to be licensed). I hope you didn't take my comment wrong about QMs going head to head with merchant officers. That was in reply to someone who said that the Navy had to look to the merchants to find a good navigator. The Merchant Marine Academy alumni that I have worked with definitely knew navigation and without a doubt were better trained in that area than graduates of the Naval Academy or ROTC. On a Navy ship the typical bridge watch includes: Officer Of Deck (not necessarily an officer, I was qualified on my last ship) Junior Officer of the Deck and/or Conning Officer Quartermaster of the Watch Boatswain's Mate of the Watch Helmsman At least two lookouts Phone talker communicating with the lookouts and CIC And then we still several guys in CIC (Combat Information Center), who are also navigating as a cross-check on the quartermaster and watching the radar as a cross-check on the OOD.