Sea time on the Bering Sea in the Commercial Fishing Industry

[CaptainWhipple]

Since we most of the times worked for 18 to 24 hours straight thru per day how much sea time can I get credit for on an un-inspected fishing vessel on the Bering Sea?

The vessel documentation certificate states there are no restrictions in regards to sea time.

or Maybe I should word the question this way:

In regards to credit towards sea time, I am wondering if the days are counted as 8 hours only or if I can document 12 hour days, since we would always work that many hours in a 24 hour period.

The ship I worked on is 198 gross ton un-inspected fishing vessel, crab fishing in the Bering Sea. Did that for most of my life it seems. Been the Green Horn and deckhand and recent years the Captain for a little while up there.

I have emailed the Coast Guard but no reply yet.

[c.captain]

everything is based on the mandated watch structure of the vessel. As far as I know there are no uninspected fishing vessels under 300grt that have any watch structure requiring licensed personnel so if you don't have any licenses on the vessel and no legal watch rotation then I believe all you can get is what is allowed in the Small Vessel Sea Service rules.

If your fishing vessel was over 300grt and had a licensed master and mate, then as a two watch vessel you would be able to get the 1 1/2 day seatime credit.

I believe that all uninspected vessels only require a master and mate except for towing vessels on voyages of over 600miles which also require a 2nd mate. I know they did change the manning rules for fish processing and catcher vessels over a certain tonnage and number of personnel aboard to carry ABs but to the best of my knowledge all still only require two licensed deck officers.


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[uninspected]

I also came from king crabbers and vessel's under 199 ton's. You will get 1.5 days for every day you worked over 12hrs. I was captain/engineer for years and before that deckhand/engineer. If any of your sea time is a dual position like mine was you can only use half of the days for your application towards a mate or half for engineer. So during your deck hand days you obviously had many wheel watches, so have your sea time state deck hand/mate or deck hand/engineer depending which way you want to go. When I went in to apply they told me I could get a 500 ton master or assistant engineer limited,DDE any hp and assistant engineer uninspected fishing vessel. Most of my sea time was as captain but I went the engineer route instead. Hope this helps