Summary of the case

1. The nation needs more mariners and has said so. A congressionally mandated MARAD working group found a deficit of qualified mariners under sustained sealift conditions. MARAD has since said the shortfall has likely grown and that it cannot measure it precisely.
2. The bottleneck is assessment and access, not knowledge. The knowledge a mariner needs can be published freely. What costs money is the path to the credential: approved courses, fees, travel, time ashore, and above all a Coast Guard–approved assessor willing to witness and sign. The Coast Guard has acknowledged “the limited number of approved QAs,” and its temporary relief expires for assessments signed after December 31, 2028.
3. The ship is now connected. Satellite broadband has ended the isolation that used to justify teaching mariners only ashore. The vessel can serve as a classroom, an assessment site and a communications hub.
4. The pipeline starts in childhood, and that end of it is thin. MARAD supports K–12 outreach such as Adopt-A-Ship and recognizes high-school-to-fleet pipelines through its Centers of Excellence program. Most children never meet a working mariner.
5. Mariners have no academy of their own. Training is delivered to working seafarers by schools, unions and companies. No institution is organized by working mariners, as members, to reason together about how they learn and to give that knowledge away.

North 37 Academy exists to close those five gaps. The rest of this brief explains each one, sets out the principles the Academy is built on, and identifies the specific changes in policy it seeks.

Part I. Findings

Finding 1 — A documented and likely growing shortage

Section 3517 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 directed MARAD to convene a Maritime Workforce Working Group (MWWG). Its report to Congress estimated 11,768 qualified mariners holding unlimited credentials. It estimated demand of 13,607 under concurrent sustained sealift and commercial operations, a deficit of 1,839 mariners, and that figure assumed every qualified mariner would be willing to sail. (MWWG, Report to Congress, 2017; U.S. DOT testimony, Assessing the Shortage of United States Mariners, 2023.) In later testimony MARAD said the shortfall has likely grown and that validating it is difficult because of “limitations in the Coast Guard’s IT system.” (MARAD Administrator remarks to the Transportation Research Board.) [VERIFY: exact date and speaker of the TRB remarks.]

Finding 2 — The assessment bottleneck has a deadline

U.S. regulations accept documented in-service assessment as evidence of STCW competence when the assessment is signed by a Qualified Assessor (QA) (46 CFR 11.301(a)(1)(i); 46 CFR 10.107). A QA “must be individually approved by the Coast Guard” (46 CFR 10.107; qualifications at 10.405). In Change 4 to NVIC 19-14 (September 29, 2023), the Coast Guard stated it “is aware of the limited number of approved QAs, resulting in hardship for mariners.” It extended acceptance of assessments signed by qualified but non-approved assessors only for assessments signed before January 1, 2029 and submitted by June 30, 2029 (USCG Merchant Mariner Credentialing Program bulletin, Oct. 2, 2023; NVIC 19-14 CH-4). Unless the supply of approved assessors grows before then, the bottleneck will tighten.

Finding 3 — Free knowledge, costly credentials

Education is free; the tools to get the credential often are not. Regulations, Coast Guard assessment guidelines (NVICs 06-14, 12-14, 14-14) and most of the underlying science are public. Credential fees (46 CFR 10.219), required medical certification, a Transportation Worker Identification Credential, Coast Guard–approved shoreside courses, and the wages lost while ashore taking them are not free. [VERIFY: current fee amounts. None are stated here on purpose.] A model that publishes the knowledge freely and spends its money on access lowers the barrier where it is actually highest.

Finding 4 — The vessel is now connected

Low-earth-orbit satellite broadband, of the kind SpaceX’s Starlink service has made common on commercial vessels, has changed shipboard life. A generation ago the author’s only link to shore at sea was email. Today a crew member can reach a mentor, a library and a classroom in real time on many vessels. [VERIFY: cite an industry or government source on the share of U.S. vessels with broadband, or omit any percentage.] The old reason to keep teaching ashore, that the ship was cut off, no longer holds on connected vessels.

Finding 5 — The K–12 end of the pipeline exists but is thin

MARAD states that it “connects with K-12 schools, especially at the high school level, to inspire students to pursue careers in the maritime industry,” and that more than 500 schools offer some form of maritime study (MARAD, Educating the Maritime Workforce). It supports the Adopt-A-Ship program, in which a classroom corresponds with a ship’s crew for a school year and which “fosters interests in geography, history, math, science, transportation, foreign and domestic trade, and English” (MARAD, The Adopt A Ship Program). Under 46 U.S.C. § 51706, MARAD designates Centers of Excellence for Domestic Maritime Workforce Training and Education. A 2026 designee is described as embedding “federal maritime credentialing pathways into an accredited high school curriculum” (MARAD, Centers of Excellence). The federal government has already accepted the principle: maritime education should start before adulthood and should involve working crews. What is missing is scale, and a curriculum that working mariners can carry into classrooms themselves.

Finding 6 — The people who move the fuel are invisible ashore

Tug-and-barge crews carry the petroleum products that heat homes and fuel highways in the Northeast. The author’s own trade runs from Portland, Maine to Virginia. Most of the public never sees them. The best available research on seafarer wellbeing, a 2019 Yale University study of 1,572 seafarers funded by the ITF Seafarers’ Trust, found that 25% screened positive for depression and 17% for anxiety, with work-environment factors (including an uncaring company culture), job satisfaction and self-rated health among the strongest predictors. Its recommendations include enhanced support for cadets and better training (Lefkowitz & Slade, Seafarer Mental Health Study, 2019). The population was international, and U.S. domestic rates may differ [VERIFY: identify any U.S.-specific study]. The policy point holds either way: purpose, mentorship and a connection to shore are protective, and a teaching role gives mariners all three.

Part II. Why an academy, and why this one

There are union schools, state maritime academies, the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, community-college programs and company training departments. Each of them delivers education to mariners. None is organized as a membership of working mariners reasoning together about how they learn, and giving what they know away. North 37 Academy is built to be that institution.

• Mariners teaching mariners. Instruction comes from licensed, sailing professionals and happens where the work is done, by doing a task together.
• Mariners teaching children. The Explorer’s Passport is a free K–12 curriculum that opens with one question, What is time?, and uses navigation to lead into physics, psychology, literature and history. It is meant to complement Adopt-A-Ship, not compete with it: Adopt-A-Ship provides the correspondence, and the Passport provides lessons a working crew can teach.
• Every vessel a hub. On connected vessels, a crew can reach a classroom, and a careful record of shipboard work becomes teaching material: in effect a safety film made by the people who do the work. (Educational only. Subject to company policy, vessel-security rules and crew consent. Not a substitute for any required training.)
• Research from the deck. The Academy is starting to study vacant berths at sea that could host trainees, and is building profiles of the vessels in its network. This is a research direction, not a finding. [VERIFY / NEED WAYNE: method, data sources and any partner operators.]

Part III. Principles of mariner membership

These principles state what North 37 Academy commits to and asks members to hold each other to. They are not claims about existing legal rights. Where they touch existing law, the law controls.

Principle 1: Mariners should be able to learn where they work. Competence is formed on deck and on the bridge, and the STCW framework already provides for in-service assessment (46 CFR 11.301(a)(1)(i)). Mariners should not have to give up wages and leave the vessel to study what they could learn aboard.

Principle 2: Mariners should own their learning record. Every member keeps a personal Seafarer’s Log, an electronic journal of vessels, duties, tasks practiced and reflections, backed up and portable from one employer to the next. It supports official sea-service evidence and never replaces it. That evidence must still come from the owner, operator, Master or Chief Engineer (46 CFR 10.232(a)(1)).

Principle 3: Mariners should be assessed fairly, by people who know the work, to the national standard. The Academy supports more officers becoming Coast Guard–approved QAs, with protected time to assess. STCW Section A-I/6 ¶2 says shipboard assessors must be able to “dedicate their time and attention” without affecting the safe operation of the ship. [VERIFY: quotation against the current STCW Code text.]

Principle 4: Knowledge given away is the Academy’s philanthropy. The curriculum is free and public, and the Academy treats ideas as gifts. Membership pays for access, mentorship and outreach. It never pays for permission to know something.

Principle 5: Members reason together. Membership is collective reasoning, not just a subscription. Members propose, test and revise curriculum from their own trades, and their accumulated experience becomes the Academy’s shared knowledge. The Academy’s development should be governed by those members. [NEED WAYNE: decide on a governance mechanism, such as an advisory council or an annual member review, before this principle is published.]

Principle 6: AI-assisted curriculum, developed carefully. Members receive curriculum drafted with several AI systems that are cross-checked against each other and against primary sources (the CFR, NVICs and the STCW Code). Every lesson is reviewed and signed off by a licensed mariner before release. AI is a drafting and tutoring tool. It never assesses competence, never signs a record, and never replaces a Qualified Assessor or a teacher. Every lesson identifies what it was built from, so members can check it.

Principle 7: Mariners are owed recognition ashore. The public should know who keeps it supplied. Classroom outreach is one way that recognition happens.

Context: The Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 sets out internationally recognized seafarers’ employment rights. The United States has not ratified it [VERIFY]. These principles are offered as education principles for a membership academy, not as a substitute for that framework.

Part IV. The model: money as a goal, never a promise

| Stream | What it is | Status | |—|—|—| | Classroom sponsorship | $5/month from the public to put working mariners in front of classrooms (in person and by satellite link). Working goal: about 10,000 sponsors. | Proposed. [NEED WAYNE: budget; entity and tax status. Contributions to an LLC are not tax-deductible.] | | Founding membership | $20/month for mariners and supporters: Seafarer’s Log support, members’ dialogues (“Off Watches”), AI-assisted curriculum. | Described in earlier letters. [VERIFY: still current.] | | Public funding | Pilot grants and recognition, set out in Part V. | Sought. Nothing has been awarded. | | Connectivity | Donated or discounted satellite service for training vessels and classroom links. | A campaign goal, not a commitment from any provider. |

No contributor is promised any financial return. The Academy’s leader intends to move from full-time sea service into full-time teaching, and to fund that work openly through sponsors and members rather than through tuition. [NEED WAYNE: barge-captain pay figure and source link, if the “sea pays well” incentive is to be quantified in this brief. Until then, no wage figure appears.]

Part V. Changes in policy sought

North 37 Academy respectfully asks for the following. No bill numbers are cited; none exist for these proposals.

1. A pilot for connected at-sea assessment. The NMC, with MARAD, would run a time-limited pilot on volunteer vessels to study whether satellite-linked video, a second approved QA observing remotely and structured digital records can support the in-service assessments 46 CFR 11.301 already allows. The pilot would collect evidence on reliability, fairness and safety before any rule changes. Today the shipboard QA personally witnesses each task, and nothing in this proposal would weaken that until the evidence supports a change.
2. Expanding approved assessors before the 2029 deadline. This could include outreach to employers, who may request QA approval on behalf of their officers under NVIC 19-14, an expedited path for experienced officers, and recognition, possibly with incentives, for companies that give assessors protected time. [VERIFY: legal mechanism for any incentive.]
3. A recognition pathway for mentor-modeled, shipboard-first programs. Clarify how an open-curriculum, member-governed program could qualify for MARAD recognition, including Center of Excellence designation under 46 U.S.C. § 51706, and how it could seek course or program approval under 46 CFR 10.402 and 10.410. [VERIFY: CoE eligibility criteria, which may require accreditation or partnership with an eligible institution.]
4. A K–12 Explorer’s Passport pilot. Support, in partnership with a state education agency (Virginia first), for a free curriculum module taught by working mariners, linked to Adopt-A-Ship and existing maritime high-school pipelines.
5. Better workforce data. Act on the MWWG’s own recommendation for a biennial survey of qualified mariners, and support research access to anonymized, aggregate crewing data so that work such as berth-vacancy analysis can be done responsibly.
6. Credential-cost relief. Look at fee waivers or reimbursement for entry-level credentials earned through recognized mentor programs. [VERIFY: existing authority.]

Part VI. What North 37 Academy commits to

• Keep the curriculum free and public, and keep its claims honest.
• Claim no Coast Guard approval it does not hold. North 37 is not currently an approved training program, and its students qualify through the standard sea-service routes.
• Use national assessment guidelines without changing them.
• Put safety and the Master’s authority ahead of any teaching activity.
• Publish a plain account of where sponsorship and membership money goes.

Conclusion

The United States has acknowledged a mariner shortage, an assessor shortage, a deadline, and the value of reaching children early. It has also, without meaning to, built a world in which the people who keep the lights on and the highways fueled have no academy of their own. North 37 Academy is a modest, practical answer: working mariners teaching where they work, giving their knowledge away, reasoning together as members, and taking the question What is time? into classrooms across the country. We ask for a pilot, a pathway and a fair hearing.

Sources

• Maritime Workforce Working Group, Report to Congress (MARAD, 2017), convened under §3517, NDAA FY2017. maritime.dot.gov/sites/marad.dot.gov/files/docs/mariners/1026/mwwg-report-congress-finalr3.pdf (accessed Oct. 26, 2026).
• U.S. Department of Transportation, Assessing the Shortage of United States Mariners and Recruitment and Retention in the United States Coast Guard (testimony, 2023). transportation.gov (accessed Oct. 26, 2026). [VERIFY: hearing date and witness.]
• MARAD, As Prepared: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Transportation Research Board (remarks). maritime.dot.gov/newsroom (accessed Oct. 26, 2026).
• U.S. Coast Guard, NVIC 19-14, Policy on Qualified Assessors, Change 4 (Sept. 29, 2023); USCG Merchant Mariner Credentialing Program bulletin, Acceptance of STCW Assessments Performed by Assessors Who Are Not Coast Guard-Approved Qualified Assessors (Oct. 2, 2023). dco.uscg.mil (accessed Oct. 26, 2026).
• 46 CFR 10.107, 10.219, 10.232, 10.402, 10.405, 10.410, 11.301. eCFR (provisions reviewed Oct. 21, 2026, for earlier North 37 papers; [VERIFY: 10.219]).
• 46 U.S.C. § 51706 (Centers of Excellence), as described by MARAD, Centers of Excellence (CoE) for Domestic Maritime Workforce Training and Education (accessed Oct. 26, 2026).
• MARAD, Educating the Maritime Workforce; Maritime Workforce Development; The Adopt A Ship Program. maritime.dot.gov (accessed Oct. 26, 2026).
• IMO, International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW), Reg. I/6 and Code Section A-I/6. [VERIFY: current consolidated text.]
• Lefkowitz, R. Y., & Slade, M. D., Seafarer Mental Health Study: Final Report (Yale University / ITF Seafarers’ Trust, Oct. 2019). seafarerstrust.org (accessed Oct. 26, 2026).

This brief is advocacy and planning material, not legal advice. Confirm current regulatory text at ecfr.gov and with the National Maritime Center before relying on any provision.

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