Entry & progression
Master <500 GT (Yachts) is the third of four AMSA yacht certificates, and the second rung on the ladder that leads to command. The ladder is Watchkeeper Deck <3000 GT (Yachts) → Master <500 GT (Yachts) → Master <3000 GT (Yachts). Chief Mate <3000 GT (Yachts) is not on it.
What Schedule 1 gives you
- Master on yachts less than 500 GT, in any operating area.
- Watchkeeper deck officer on yachts less than 3000 GT, in any operating area.
- Able Seafarer — Deck duties.
Read the third line again. At Watchkeeper Deck level, Schedule 1 gives you rating forming part of a navigational watch. At Master <500 it gives you Able Seafarer — Deck. That is a genuine step up in the rating entitlement you carry alongside the officer's. It is easy to miss and worth knowing when a manning scale is being argued over.
Note the second line too. The watchkeeping entitlement runs to <3000 GT — the same as the certificate below it. The command entitlement stops at <500 GT. Tonnage constrains what you may command, not what you may keep a watch on. That asymmetry is the whole architecture of the yacht ladder.
What a 'yacht' is
MO74 defines it, and the definition is narrower than the word suggests. A yacht is a vessel that is less than 3000 GT, is for commercial use for sport or pleasure, does not carry cargo, and does not carry more than 12 passengers. All four limbs. Fail one and the vessel is not a yacht and your yacht certificate does not reach it.
MO74 also notes that a yacht need not be designed to carry sail, and may be a training vessel, a sail training vessel or a short range yacht.
The trap, stated plainly
WARNING — Chief Mate <3000 GT (Yachts) is NOT the middle rung MO74 Schedule 2 sets the prerequisite for Master <3000 GT (Yachts) as: hold or have held a Master <500 GT (Yachts) certificate, or another certificate AMSA considers at least equivalent. Chief Mate is not named.
MO74 Schedule 2 sets the prerequisite for Master <500 GT (Yachts) as: hold or have held a Watchkeeper Deck <3000 GT (Yachts) certificate, or an AMSA-equivalent. Chief Mate is not named there either.
Chief Mate <3000 GT (Yachts) has Schedule 1 duties that are word-for-word identical to Watchkeeper Deck, requires no extra sea service over Watchkeeper, and appears in the ladder only as a certificate you may be holding while accruing service. It is a side branch, not a step. Anyone who tells you the path runs Watchkeeper → Chief Mate → Master has it backwards.
The endorsement below it
There is one endorsement in the yacht system, not a certificate: Master <200 GT (Yachts). It sits on the Watchkeeper Deck and Chief Mate certificates and allows master duties on yachts under 200 GT and under 24 m. It requires a separate, second oral examination. If you already hold Master <500, the endorsement is behind you.
The certificate you are studying for is the first one that says master without a qualifier attached to somebody else's ticket.