500 ton exam topics

[tugboat12]

hey all- just wondering for myself(who passed the n.c. 500 exam 2 months ago) and a guy at work who is studying, are there any tide current problems on the 500 tn mast. test?? I'm guessing the answer for most people is yes(??) but as i had posted somewhere else on this site, i had none/zero tide current problems anywhere on my test!..which was a bit of a let down, as i had done about a hundred of them in preparation... i did not take a test prep class so i guess i was never totally 100% sure what was going to be on there, but they were all over the gen nav part of my hawsepipe cd which is what i studied to prepare...i assumed they'd be on the gen nav. section but none there or on coastal nav... I also had no apparent wind problems of any kind or rotary current... in fact, i don't believe i used a manuevering board/plotting sheet for the entire test...just wondering what any one else's experience was with the exam, especially w/ the tide/curr. as I had studied so much for them... thanks...

[Tom B]

I passed my 500 master 6 months ago. No tide, wind or rotary current. I did my test prep at Fletcher and never studied any of that so it was a good thing none of it was on the test.

Tom

[tugboat12]

tom, thanks for the info- i guess if i took the test, and you took the test, and neither had any tide/curr, wind,etc, and they didn't cover it at your exam prep, i spent quite a few hours studying some of the wrong topics! the hawsepipe cd had lots of tide/curr problems on there so i figured i'd need to know it... oh well...i'm just glad its done but i'll pass this info on- thanks

[Jemplayer]

I asked Capt Bruce about that as I saw all the guys working on taking their mates license were pulling their hair out over tide problems and when would I have the pleasure of doing the same. He said that it was not on the master exam, just on on the mates.

While we don't get tides but we do get stability, so its a trade off.

Also I didn't get any tide questions.

[tugboat12]

yes, i did have stability on my deck safety/environmental test... i think only 3 of them- some guys have said they had as many as 12 stability on their test so i guess i got a little lucky... . as for the tide/current problems, i guess it pays to do a test prep class if you have the time/money because i spent a lot of time studying tide/current prob. and a couple of other things that apparently were not going to be on the test...i'd just say to anyone with the hawespipe cd studying for 500tn MASTER without a prep class, don't be mislead by the tide/curr probs. on the nav gen. section of the cd, because they aren't on the exam....