Eligibility: age, citizenship, medical and TWIC

Age

Eighteen. 46 CFR 11.201(e)(2)(v) names the OUPV explicitly as one of the endorsements that may be granted at 18 rather than the default 21. Master of vessels 25–200 GRT requires 19 — so the OUPV is genuinely the youngest commercial ticket available.

Citizenship — the OUPV is the exception

46 CFR 11.201(d) is blunt: no officer endorsement may be issued to a person who is not a US citizen — with the exception of operators of uninspected passenger vessels that are not documented under the laws of the United States.

This is the only crack of daylight in the entire national officer scheme. A non-citizen can hold an OUPV, endorsed "Limited to Uninspected Vessels Not Documented Under the Laws of the United States." It is a real credential doing real work in the charter trade, and almost nobody knows it exists.

Medical certificate

A deck officer must meet the standards in 46 CFR Part 10 Subpart C, evidenced on form CG-719K. The vision standard for deck is correctable to at least 20/40 in one eye, with uncorrected vision of at least 20/200 in the same eye, plus a satisfactory colour sense (46 CFR 10.305(a)). Because the OUPV is not an STCW capacity, the certificate is issued for up to 5 years rather than the 2 years that applies to STCW mariners (46 CFR 10.301(b)).

There is no fee for a medical certificate. The NMC says so directly.

TWIC — and the exemption nobody mentions

You will read everywhere that a TWIC is mandatory. 46 CFR 10.203(a) does make failure to hold one a basis for denial. But Coast Guard Policy Letter 11-15, issued under section 809 of the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2010, exempts mariners serving on vessels that need no security plan — and it lists uninspected passenger vessels of less than 100 GRT first among them.

That is the entire OUPV population. The current CG-719B carries a tick-box for it. But the exemption is narrower than it looks, and here is the part that trips people:

CAUTION — Exempt from holding the card — not from enrolling A first-time applicant must still ENROL for a TWIC: the enrolment centre is the only place the Coast Guard can capture your fingerprints. You pay TSA's fee and give biometrics. What you need not do is go back and collect the physical card. Anyone who tells you no TWIC is needed at all is wrong, and so is anyone who says you must have the card in hand.

First aid and CPR

46 CFR 11.201(i) requires both, and the two have different currency rules — which is where applications get bounced:

• First aid — a certificate showing completion not more than 1 year before the date of application.
• CPR — merely a currently valid certificate. No one-year rule.
• Valid STCW Basic Training satisfies both. If you already hold BST from the MCA side of the house, you do not need separate certificates.

Drug testing

A chemical test for dangerous drugs, passed and dated not more than 185 days before you submit the application (46 CFR 16.220(a)). The NMC checklist rounds this to "within 6 months"; the regulation says 185 days, and the regulation controls. You are exempt if you have been in a qualifying random testing programme for at least 60 of the previous 185 days.

The panel is the DOT panel of 49 CFR 40.85 — which since 2018 has included hydrocodone, oxycodone and their relatives. The old "five-panel" description printed on the CG-719P form is a summary, and an out-of-date one.