The United States Coast Guard (USCG) requires mariners to provide a verification of sea service as a part of the application process for applying for and renewing a Captain’s License. A License is required for captaining inspected and uninspected vessels. Captain Licenses consists of four categories: 1. Master 2. Mate 3. Operator. 4. First Class Pilot. Both Master and Mate have a sub-category, Near Coastal (up to 200 miles offshore) or Inland (Lakes, Bays, and Sounds). The categories apply to Gross Tonnage Vessels ranging from 25 to 200 Gross Tonnage. Operator of Uninspected Passengers Vessels (OUPV) can contain a Near Costal endorsement if the credentialing requirements are met. One way to provide this information is to use the CG-719S form. This form contains data related to the applicant, the vessel used for sea service, number of days underway, hours per day, etc.
This software provides a digital log for capturing relevant trip details eliminating the need to keep a log book. The app can be used for trip planning as well as trip logging. In planning mode, the user adds destination arrival times and distance, omitting departure times and average speed/RPM. This information can be added later. Weather reports can be obtained for each location with dates in the future up to 5 days in advance. For logging, all information would be added at one time to complete the entry. Planning entries are shown in the main view with red text, indicating to the user that these entries will not be accounted for in a sea service query. As an example, on the East Coast, a captain may log a charter which starts from her home port in Edgewater to Baltimore Inner Harbor and back. After completing the profile section and entering in the vessel information, the captain would enter the details of the trip, adding a trip name (Inner Harbor), selecting the vessel for the trip, adding a trip start and destinations. Start location entry, Holiday Point Marina, 3774 Beach Dr. Blvd, Edgewater, MD. First destination entry, Inner Harbor Marina, 400 Key Highway, Baltimore, MD. Second destination: entry is the same as start. Each destination would have estimated arrival times and distances for each destination of 41 miles. As a guide for arrival times, if the captain traveled at an average of 10 knots, this would yield a trip duration of approximately four hours. Trips destinations are entered in chronological order with respect to date/time, meaning each destination entered should occur after the previous start/destination. The bodies of water entered would be South River, Chesapeake Bay and Patapsco River. The maximum distance off shore would be 3.5 miles. The trip is shoreward. After populating necessary fields, the save button is enabled and the trip can be saved. The user is taken back to the Vessel/Trip Summary View. This trip entry shows red text since it is considered incomplete until the remaining information, (average trip speed and/or average RPM, departure times for destinations), is entered. Note, the last destination in the destination list is considered the trip end so it should not have a trip departure time. The information can be updated with the missing information at any time, ideally before the sea service query is executed. Saving the trip entry changes the status to complete (blue text in the Vessel/Trip Summary View). Access the Sea Service tab to gain access to the query page. In this dialog, select the vessel to use for the query, the time period (start month/year inclusive and end month/year, exclusive). Upon query execution, accessing the View Results to view the populated CG-719S document. The document can be printed, allowing it to be use along with the additional documentation required to submit to the USCG for credentialing.
The use of the app is only applicable in the US.
