Entry & progression
The paperwork is the certificate. The competence is what you build at sea; the Training Record Book is what proves you built it. Lose the book and you lose the time.
The Training Record Book
On the structured route, the six months of sea service must be performed under supervision and documented in a Training Record Book. Those are not two decorations on the same requirement. They are the requirement.
The TRB is a live document. It is signed as you go, by someone competent to sign it, against tasks you have actually done. It is not a form you fill in at the end of a season from memory over a coffee in the crew mess. AMSA is not interested in your recollection of the year — it is interested in a contemporaneous record countersigned by a person who watched you do the work.
WARNING — The book only works if the supervisor exists Supervised service needs a supervisor. Before you accept a job on the strength of it counting toward your ETO, establish who aboard is competent and willing to supervise and sign, and confirm they will still be there in six months.
This is the quiet failure mode of yacht sea time. The vessel qualifies, the hours are real, the work is genuine — and there is nobody with a certificate to sign the book. That service does not become qualifying because you were busy.
Sea service letters
For an international certificate, qualifying sea service must be confirmed by a letter issued by the company. A letter issued on board by the master will not be accepted. The domestic system is the opposite way round — near-coastal service can be confirmed by the master, owner, operator or chief engineer.
Getting that backwards invalidates accrued time. It is one of the cheapest mistakes to avoid and one of the most expensive to make.
Medical fitness
You will need a certificate of medical fitness. For the international system that is the AMSA form 303, examined only by an authorised Medical Inspector of Seafarers, booked through the central booking system — an examination booked directly with an inspector rather than through that system is deemed invalid. Validity is generally two years, or one year if you are under 18 or 55 and over. The initial certificate-of-competency medical must be done in Australia.
Revalidation
Engineering certificates revalidate on a five-year cycle. The routes are alternatives: twelve months of qualifying sea service in the preceding five years; or three months in the preceding six; or an approved revalidation course within five years; or equivalent duties plus approved courses; or approved short courses plus a passed final assessment. Plus a current medical, and maintained PSCRB, advanced fire fighting and security awareness.
Note also that some service is capped: for certain non-self-propelled units and auxiliary machinery run independently of main propulsion, only a limited period is creditable. Check whether your intended service falls inside a cap before you count on it.
What AMSA does not publish
CAUTION — There is no AQF course title for this certificate AMSA publishes no AQF qualification title for the STCW engineer certificates. No such title appears on any AMSA engineer page or in Marine Order 72. This course therefore names the requirement — an approved course of the stated length, including the stated workshop skills — and never a qualification code.
If you see one quoted, it came from a training provider's catalogue, not from AMSA. Before you enrol, ask AMSA in writing whether that specific course is approved for the ETO, and keep the reply.
This is the discipline that keeps the certificate honest. Where the source says nothing, we say nothing — and we tell you exactly where to go and ask.