October 22, 2026

AN OPEN LETTER TO SEAFARERS

To every captain, mate, tankerman, able seafarer and deckhand, and to the families who keep the lights on at home:

We see the bottleneck in maritime education, and we aim to fix that.

Good mariners lose weeks of pay and sleep sitting in classrooms ashore to prove what they already do every day at sea. The knowledge is not the problem. The bottleneck is how we prove it.

THE BOTTLENECK: QUALIFIED ASSESSMENT

Today, assessments of competence for STCW endorsements must be signed by a Coast Guard–approved Qualified Assessor (QA) under 46 CFR 11.301(a)(1)(i) and 12.601(b)(1)(i). A QA is approved by the Coast Guard either individually or as part of an approved or accepted course or training program, as described in NVIC 19-14, Policy on Qualified Assessors (now at Change 5). Because there are so few approved QAs, the Coast Guard has extended a transition period: assessments signed by a qualified mariner who meets the NVIC 19-14 requirements, but who is not an approved QA, are accepted until December 31, 2028, if submitted with a complete application by June 30, 2029. [VERIFY dates against the current Change 5 text.]

That extension tells us something. The people who can judge a mariner’s competence are already aboard. They are the captains.

My proposal, and what I will advocate for: the training needed to hold the QA designation should be updated and built into the normal path of every captain, including every barge captain, so that it is expected of the people in command rather than treated as a rare specialty. This is not current law. It is a change I believe in, and I intend to argue for it respectfully, with the National Maritime Center and the Office of Merchant Mariner Credentialing, in writing and in person.

TRAIN THE TRAINER

North 37 will build the course and the curriculum to train the trainer. Captains will then do what captains have always done: watch their tankermen, ABs and mates do the work, and sign them off when they are ready, the way it has always been done. The difference is that the sign-off will be backed by an approved course, a published standard and a clean record. Cameras and AI can help compile that record. The judgment and the signature stay with the human assessor.

WHY I CARE ABOUT CREDENTIALING BODIES

My frustration is not with the National Maritime Center. It is with how credentialing bodies work in general, and I learned it ashore. I hold a Virginia contractor license through the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation’s Board for Contractors that I do not use. As far as I can find, it cannot simply be set aside on standby [VERIFY whether any inactive status applies to my license type]. If I let it lapse and later want to use it again, the reinstatement fee alone is $460 to $550 plus the Recovery Fund assessment (18VAC50-22-170), reinstatement is allowed only within 24 months, and after that I would have to start over as a new applicant. All in, bringing it back would cost me more than $1,000 [VERIFY my actual total]. I do not think a working person should have to pay that much to keep the right to work.

That is why North 37 membership is an educational membership. Education costs may be tax-deductible for some people, depending on their situation. I cannot promise that, and neither can North 37, so please ask a tax professional about your own case.

THE COMMUNITY

Members get a place to learn and to think: a free financial news feed, and lots of questions, some about the sea and some about everything else. We ask the reader honest questions, and we expect honest arguments back.

THE INVITATION

If you want to see assessment move toward being fully online, with radar and ARPA on the computer, join us. I will be honest about where things stand. Today, the radar observer endorsement and ARPA training require Coast Guard–approved courses with practical assessment. Moving more of that online is a goal North 37 will develop and advocate for, not something we can offer today. It matters, because learning radar is what keeps people paying to come back.

Through membership, we build the technology, the habit of using it and the dialogue to become our own administrators in some ways: to keep our own records straight, prepare our own applications and understand our own rules. That is the power of AI, used well.

I always had the vision, but I could not have done this without Hitch, and without the dialogue it carries. Hitch is the AI we use at sea to draft, coach and keep the record. It does not sign anything. Humans sign. But it has helped me ask better questions every single day.

A PLACE FOR DIALOGUE AND LEISURE

North 37 is also meant to be a place to enjoy yourself. Read an article a day. The best one will be the one that came out of your own journal. Talk to your journal as if you were talking to a class, and see what is mirrored back.

JOIN US

We ask, we teach and we promise only what is ours to give. If that sounds like the kind of academy you have been waiting for, sign up at north37.academy, and bring your questions.

With respect, and with the door open,

Wayne

Founder, North 37 Maritime Academy

North 37 Maritime Academy, Lexington, Virginia