Regulation 8
Qualifying service at sea for the purposes of Regulations 4(1) and 5(1)(a) of these Regulations shall be either—
service in a deck rating in a ship other than a ship having a general purpose or integrated crew (referred to in this Regulation as “service in a deck rating”), or
service in a general purpose rating in a ship having a general purpose or integrated crew (referred to in this Regulation as “service in a general purpose rating”), or
service partly in the one and partly in the other of the above mentioned ratings (referred to in this Regulation as “mixed service”).
Subject to the following provisions of this Regulation and the provisions of Regulation 9, the period of qualifying service shall be as follows:—
for the purposes of Regulation 5(1)(a)—
in the case of service in a deck rating, 12 months;
in the case of service in a general purpose rating, 18 months;
in the case of mixed service, a period of between 12 and 18 months such that the component periods of service in a deck rating and in a general purpose rating respectively, expressed as percentages of the periods prescribed in relation thereto in sub-paragraphs (i) and (ii), total 100 per cent;
for the purposes of Regulation 4(1), in the case of each type of service the period specified in relation thereto in sub-paragraph (a) of this paragraph plus a further period of 2 years.
In calculating the length of periods of qualifying service for the purpose of paragraph (2) of this Regulation—
a period of service in a minor ship shall count as one half of the period actually so served;
service in a ship having a gross tonnage of less than 15 tons shall be disregarded;
every day by which a period of actual service in a ship exceeds the number of months comprised in that period, and every day of such service comprised in a period of actual service of less than one month, shall be treated as 1/30th of a month of actual service;
the length of every period of actual service in a ship shall be calculated separately from the date of its commencement to the date of its termination.
Every period of qualifying service shall include a proportion of service in major ships other than fishing boats, amounting to not less than 25 per cent.