The Revalidation of DP certificates was agreed with industry stakeholder (DPTEG) in 2013 during the review of the DP training scheme. The revalidation was set up for the following reasons:
a) It follows the principles of best practices and STCW revalidation of certificates.
b) Within the rules of the original scheme, a person who had not worked continuously on DP would have to repeat 180 DP sea time days in order to keep and validate his/her DP certificate. The revalidation process came to assist the industry and existing DPOs to maintain their DP skills and certificate as they continue working on board of vessels or on DP related activities.

The revalidation of DP certificates started on 1st January 2015 and is being phased in as below:

2015: Revalidation of DP certificates issued from 1984 to 2002, 2009 and 2010
2016: Revalidation of certificates issued from 2003 to 2004 and 2011
2017: Revalidation of certificates issued from 2005 to 2006 and 2012
2018: Revalidation of certificates issued from 2007 to 2008 and 2013
2019: Revalidation of certificates issued in 2014 and so on

DPOs should apply and send their documents into our office for processing the same month as their original certificate was issued.

A DP sea time day for any time being claimed is a minimum of two hours using the DP desk. Your company must be able to confirm this time through their records in order to issue you with a confirmation letter.

In order to accept DP sea time days towards the revalidation, these days should be logged in The Nautical Institute’s DP Training or DP Revalidation Logbook. You can also use the DP time and activities which have been logged in your IMCA logbook.  

For the first revalidation for all DPOs up until 31st December 2019, the new certificate will be issued for a period of five years. After this date The Nautical Institute will issue the certificate based on the date of the revalidation recall.
Example: if the DPO is required to revalidate the certificate in 2015 but only applies for this process in 2017, then the Institute will issue the DP certificate with validity until 2022. For the second revalidation, if the DPO does not apply until 2024, the issue date will only be until 2027 and it means that the DPO will lose two years of his renewal process and will be due to revalidate the DP certificate again in three years’ time instead of five years.
In order to avoid future issues and complaints on this matter, The Nautical Institute has been communicating the requirements and processes for revalidation since 2012 through many channels, including the Institute’s website, companies, conferences and DPTEG members to make sure that everyone in the industry is aware of the need to revalidate their certificates.

Yes, but in order to revalidate your DP certificate you must have completed either the mandatory amount of DP sea time or DP activities to ensure that your certificate is still valid. The requirements for revalidation are shown below:
a) Complete a minimum of 150 DP sea time days done within a period of 5 years or

b) If the DPO has less than 150 DP sea time days within the preceding 5 years, complete a DP Simulator Course followed by a minimum of 30 DP sea time days on a DP classed vessel or

c) If no DP sea time days were obtained within the preceding 5 years, complete a DP Simulator Course followed by a minimum of 60 DP sea time days on a DP classed vessel or

d) As an alternative to a); b); or c) above – complete an approved DP Revalidation Course

e) If the DP professional has been engaged in an occupation The Nautical Institute considers as being equivalent to the sea service (i.e. DP lecturer/instructor, DP surveyor, DP consultant, DP auditor, DP superintendent, DP supervisor), revalidation of his/her DP certificate will require a minimum of 150 days in the activity claimed in the preceding 5 years.

NOTE: The Revalidation Course may be completed up to six months before the revalidation date set by the NI. The course will be valid for a period of 12 months only, in which the DPO must send in an application into the NI. If the participant is completing the course for the first time, there is no minimum DP sea time requirement.
If the participant is completing the course for a second or subsequent time, a minimum of 28 DP sea time days will be required to revalidate. This DP time may be completed prior to or after the Revalidation Course.
Where a participant subsequently revalidates using 150 DP sea time days only, after having taken the Revalidation Course for their first renewal, that participant can then take the Revalidation Course again without a DP sea time requirement

The entries to prove the DP occupation (d) shall be made in an NI or IMCA logbook and signed by the accredited training centre (in the case of a DP lecturer), the vessel’s Operations Manager (in the case of a DP superintendent, DP consultant, or DP supervisor) where the person has performed the work/activity or by The Nautical Institute’s authorised person (in the case of a DP auditor).
All DP sea time to be used for revalidation must be logged in the NI logbook or IMCA logbook and the time signed off by the master.
If the person decides to apply with a mix of experience that involves criterion (a) and criterion (e), then the sea time obtained during the last 5 years shall be counted towards the required cumulative 150 days. Example: 15 days as a DP lecturer and 15 days DP sea service, totalling (the minimum) 30 days.
Masters holding a DP certificate can claim for the DP sea time due to their direct responsibility for and supervision of the DP operations. In this case, the DP sea time shall be recorded in the NI or IMCA logbook, signed and stamped as the DP Master.
NOTE
a) Passive DP sea time will not be accepted for revalidation purposes as it can only be counted for initial training in the task section of the logbook.

b) POSITION MOORING (POSMOOR) or THRUSTER-ASSISTED MOORING (TAM): The time on board a vessel with the classification POSITION MOORING or THRUSTER-ASSISTED MOORING (TAM) and DP class notation can be counted towards the DP sea time obtained for revalidation purposes.
Please check the Dynamic Positioning Operator’s Training and Certification Scheme document for more details.

Click here for a list of NI accredited DP training centres where you can take the Revalidation Course. 

The hours recorded in an individual’s logbook will be divided by 2 to get the number of DP days that the person has obtained in the last 5 years. This produces the formula below:

 (Total number of hours for each embark / 2h) =< X

Where X cannot be more than the number of days of that embarkation.

The 2 hours comes from the definition of DP sea time for the offshore industry.

Yes. If as a DP professional, you have been engaged in an occupation The Nautical Institute considers as being equivalent to the required DP sea time, revalidation of your certificate will require a minimum of 150 days in the activity claimed in the preceding five years.

If you have no more space in your NI logbook, you can request an NI Revalidation Logbook for recording your seagoing experience. Please contact the DP department for more details or visit www.nialexisplatform.org
Alternatively, if you have an IMCA logbook, we will accept time recorded in this book for revalidation purposes only. Please note, the NI does not accept any time entered into an IMCA logbook for first time, or upgrade applications.
Please see IMCA details below:
IMCA Publications
52 Grosvenor Gardens
LONDON
SW1W 0AU

Tel: 020 7824 5520
Fax: 020 7824 5521
Email: publications@imca-int.com
Web: http://www.imca-int.com/documents/publications/logbooks.html

Any DP sea time completed after 1st January 2014 will need to be confirmed on a letter from the company. The template for this letter is available on our website..

If you do not have your original certificate you will need to provide a police report and/or affidavit attesting to the fact that the document is lost and no longer in your possession. The original document should be sent in with your logbook and other documents as part of your application.

This message could be showing for a number of reasons:
• Dates over five years old: If you have entered in all your DP time for revalidation, please check to see if any of these dates now contain any days which are over five years old. For example, if you are trying to submit your documents online on 5th June 2017 and you have an entry in your application which is 28th May 2012 – 15th June 2012, the beginning of this entry is over five years old and the system will show the error message. Please remove or edit this entry so only days within the five years are entered. This includes the IMCA logbook as well as the NI logbooks.
• Hours missing from IMCA entries: If you have entered time from your IMCA logbook, but not entered the numbers of hours, the system may not be able to calculate the amount of DP sea time that you are claiming. Please log back into your account and add the information.
• Missing DP sea time days: If no new information has been entered into the online application on your account the system is unable to calculate the amount of DP sea time that you are claiming. Please log back into your account and add the information.

The IMCA logbook is not produced or dispatched by The Nautical Institute. Please contact IMCA for more guidance on filling the logbook in. 

No. Any dates that have been altered with correction fluid may automatically make your application unsuccessful. If there is a simple mistake, please put a line through it and have the correct information entered. Please then have the Master sign next to the correction so that it shows he/she is aware of it.
If you are not sure, please check our logbook guides which are available on our website.

In Progress – the applicant is currently filling in the online application.
Eligible and Not Eligible – the applicant is only able to make the payment for the application once the status has changed to Eligible. Please take note of any error messages that appear on the account.
Submitted/Paid – the applicant has completed the online application and made the payment. The original documents should now be sent into our office along with the signed PDF Checklist which can be downloaded from the account main page.
Received/Not Applied Online - the application has been receieved but the online applicaiton has not been completed. We will keep your documents for two weeks before sending them back by standard post if the online application has not been completed.
Received and In Process – the application has been received in our office and is currently in the queue for processing.
Query Raised – a query has been raised on your application. Either you or your company has been contacted for more information.
Certificate Issued – the application has been processed and the DP certificate has been issued. The documents will be sent back to the address on the account via courier.
Unsuccessful – the application contains errors and/or is missing information. The communication note should be checked on the account and once the logbook has been returned, it should be checked through against your documents in order to rectify any issues.

Yes. The Nautical Institute now issues a validity date on all certificates. The certificate will be valid for a period of five years. At the end of the five years, you will need to revalidate this certificate again. Please ensure that during the five years, you are logging your DP time ready to use for revalidation. Please see the revalidation pages on our website for more details. 

It is The Nautical Institute’s policy not to forward copies of issued certificates to DPOs. Once the certificate is printed, it will be despatched back to the address on the application and the certificate details can be checked online via our certificate verification checker. 

Yes. If you are using a company address in China or Russia, please note that our courier requires a company registration number. This will help stop any delays when sending your documents back to you.

Our courier requires a signature on delivery which is why the delivery address cannot be a PO Box address. There must be someone physically at the address to sign for the documents. If you are going to sea and there will be no one at home, please ensure that you provide an alternative address that we can send your documents to.

Yes. You should continue to record your time in your logbook as you will need to provide evidence of DP time when the certificate is due for revalidation. For more information, please go to the Revalidation page of our website.

In the first instance, please try our 'forgotten your password?' option. If you have an email address linked to the account, this will provide you with a temporary passowrd will will allow you to login.
We also have an option on our login page for those who are revalidating but do not know their login details as they never used the online application before and have no email address linked to their account. The link is at the top right of the login page. Once you have entered in the required information, a temporary password will then be sent to you and your email address will be set up on your account.
Once you log into your account using your email as your username, please ensure that you update your personal details page including adding a new password.
Please note that company email addresses should not be used as our system will not be able to accept an email address that has been used for another account.

No. Adding the attachments is only part of the application process. You must start the revalidation application by clicking on the ‘Revalidate’ button under the options of ‘What do you want to do now?’ This will start the revalidation application and will take you through to where the additional 150 DP days needs to be added. Once the information is added, the application should be submitted using the Submit button on the main account page. Once the application is showing as Eligible, the payment can be made to complete the online application.
After submitting the online application, the PDF Checklist will become available to download on your account home page, and should be printed off and filled in. You must now send your original documents into the NI offices for processing. Please note that if the physical documents are not sent into our office, the processing cannot be done and the new certificate cannot be issued.

When applying for revalidation you need to add the DP sea time information into the application as well as attaching copies of your documents. If you do not add any sea time, the system will recognize that you do not have enough DP days to revalidate and will request a new Simulator course. Please see the question ‘I have added my DP sea time but the system is asking me for a Simulator course. Why?’

Candidates are required to apply online through the Alexis Platform website of The Nautical Institute. The following documents shall be sent as part of the application:
• Original NI DP logbook
• IMCA logbook (if applicable)
• Original DP certificate issued by The Nautical Institute
• Confirmation letter for all DP sea time claimed after 1 January 2014
• Copy of passport personal details page
• Signed PDF Checklist – available after payment for application has been completed.

In the case of revalidation, The Nautical Institute requires that DPOs send their documents in the same month as their original DP certificate was initially issued, i.e. the month printed on the DP certificate.
After verification and if applicable, the DP certificate will be replaced with a new expiry date, valid for 5 years.

The checking and verifying process can only be done with original documents. The original certificate will also be replaced with a new, credit card sized certificate, and a new label will be added to your NI logbook to match the information on the card. 

When you apply for revalidation an email will be sent to you confirming that The Nautical Institute has received your logbook. A letter will be attached to this email containing a QR code which can be scanned and will link to our website to verify that you are the holder of a DP certificate and that it is currently being revalidated.

The revalidation applications will be put into a separate queue to the applications for the initial certificate. This means that they will be processed much quicker and normally processed within 3-4 weeks. We have also staggered the time for people to apply to ensure that applications can be processed in a timely manner.  

Please visit our website for the courier fees which are applicable to all applications.
http://www.nialexisplatform.org/certification/dynamic-positioning/fees-application/
(UK and Europe are subject to an additional charge on the courier fee due to VAT, which is beyond The Nautical Institute's control.)

No. You must apply online before sending your documents into our office. The payment must be done through the Alexis Platform. The online payment system is linked to the PDF Checklist which becomes available on the account once the payment is made.
Applications made without the payment online may be sent back as unsuccessful via standard post (un-trackable).

Please send all relevant documents into our offices at the below address:
DP Department
(Revalidation)
The Nautical Institute
202 Lambeth Road
London
SE1 7LQ
United Kingdom

Please ensure that you check the PDF Checklist for the documents that you should send in.