Entry & progression
Credential: Operator of Uninspected Passenger Vessels (OUPV), less than 100 GRT. The entry-level US commercial ticket, universally called the "six-pack". Entry: age 18, 12 months' vessel experience. Progresses to Master of vessels less than 100 GRT.
Six passengers, and the word that matters
46 CFR 11.467(a) sets the boundary: an OUPV authorises service on uninspected passenger vessels of less than 100 GRT, with propulsion machinery of any type, carrying six or fewer passengers. The number everyone remembers is six. The word that actually decides cases is passenger.
A passenger is someone carried for hire — someone who has paid, or on whose behalf a payment has been made, for the carriage. Your friends are not passengers. Your paying charter guests are. The moment consideration changes hands, six people become a regulatory ceiling rather than a comfortable afternoon.
- Six or fewer passengers. Not six people — six passengers. Crew are not counted in the six.
- Uninspected. The vessel carries no Certificate of Inspection. Carry a seventh passenger and the vessel becomes a small passenger vessel, which must be inspected under Subchapter T.
- Less than 100 GRT. Gross register tons, not displacement, not length.
- Any propulsion. Power, sail, or auxiliary sail — the OUPV does not care.
What it is not
The OUPV is not a tonnage-tiered credential. Unlike Master of vessels under 100 GRT, there is no 25/50/100 GRT limitation computed from your service — an OUPV is an OUPV, valid to just under 100 GRT, and the tonnage of the boats you built your time on does not restrict it.
It is also not an STCW capacity. The NMC checklist says so in as many words. An OUPV will not get you a watchkeeping job on a foreign-going yacht, and it does not map onto the MCA ladder. It is a domestic US credential for domestic US work.
WARNING — The seventh passenger changes the law, not just the licence Carrying a seventh passenger for hire does not merely exceed your OUPV — it makes the vessel a small passenger vessel requiring a Certificate of Inspection it does not have. You are then operating an uninspected vessel in a service that demands inspection. That is a different and far more serious problem than an endorsement limit.
Where the definition actually lives
46 CFR 24.10-1 defines the uninspected passenger vessel: under 100 gross tons, carrying not more than six passengers including at least one passenger for hire. That last clause is the hinge. A boat carrying nobody for hire is not a UPV at all — it is a recreational vessel, and none of this applies to it. One paying passenger brings the whole of 46 CFR Subchapter C down on the vessel, and puts the operator inside a licensing regime.
This is why the OUPV exists at the size it does. The Coast Guard is not regulating boats; it is regulating the carriage of the public for money. The moment you take someone's money to carry them, you have accepted a duty of care the law intends to hold you to — and a credential is how it holds you.
What the work actually looks like
The six-pack is the working ticket of the charter fishing boat, the dive boat, the harbour tour, the sunset cruise and the delivery skipper. It is not a stepping stone that people pass through — for a great many professional mariners it is the credential they hold for a career. Treat it as a beginning if you intend to climb, but do not mistake it for a beginner's licence. The exam does not.