Wednesday, 04 February 2009 12:38

Issue: On May 20th, 2008, the Coast Guard released an interim rule requiring mariners who are subject to STCW and serve as VSO’s onboard vessels, to have VSO training through a Coast Guard approved program and maintain an endorsement on their STCW credentials. This rulemaking makes VSO’s fall under the IMO standards as well. Applicable mariners are required to have an endorsement on their STCW certificate by July 1st, 2009. The Coast Guard named three QSS’s (Quality Standards Systems) that all VSO training programs need to be approved under. Those QSS’s are: ABS, DNV and the American Council for Education. The OMSA/Hudson Trident VSO training program is an approved training program under DNV.

Status: OMSA submitted official comments to the docket which can be viewed at www.regulations.gov and entering docket number USCG-2008-0028. All mariners trained by the Hudson Trident VSO program prior to January 1st, 2009 are approved to obtain the STCW endorsement. No final regulations have been released, but OMSA will continue to monitor the issue closely.