The USCG Color-Blind Test: What It Is and How to Succeed

Many color-blind individuals have to give up on their dreams of becoming a captain.

An airline captain, that is.

Unfortunately, many color-blind people aren’t familiar with the United States Coast Guard’s (USCG) restrictions around color blindness, which prevents them from pursuing a captain’s license they can earn.

Let’s clear up the misconceptions about the USCG color-blind test once and for all. Here’s how color blindness impacts your journey to becoming a boat captain.

More About Color Blindness

Color blindness is the inability to distinguish between certain colors. This condition results from an absence of color-sensitive pigment in the retina’s cone cells, the nerve layer at the back of the eye.

Color blindness affects approximately 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women worldwide. For most people with deficient color vision, the condition is genetic and inherited from their mother.

However, some people become color blind because of other diseases, such as diabetes and multiple sclerosis. Over time, people can acquire the condition because of aging, certain medications, and chemical exposure.

The USCG Color-Blind Test

You may be most familiar with Ishihara plates or pseudo isochromatic plates (PIP). An Ishihara plate shows an assemblage of colored dots with a number in the middle made up of differently colored dots.

Ishihara plates help diagnose red-green color vision defects, but they aren’t perfect. Sometimes, the colors in one set of plates don’t quite match those in a different set. They may also look different in various lighting situations.

Another USCG color-blind test option is the Farnsworth Lantern Test (FALANT). Professionals often consider it the most straightforward and accurate color vision test.

The test shows nine random pairs of vertically oriented lights in red, green, and yellow-white combinations. Test subjects identify the pair of colors — some are identical. The test begins with a red-green combination, which decreases testing errors by allowing subjects to see these two colors before seeing a white light.

Examinees see the target for only two seconds, as color-deficient patients sometimes correctly identify the colors with prolonged exposure. The yellow-white light, or one of the identical paired lights, also employs a 50% neutral gray filter to reduce luminance cues to the color-deficient patient.

How the Coast Guard Regulates Color Blindness

The Coast Guard doesn’t differentiate between levels of color blindness. Instead, your physician administers a pass/fail test.

Don’t worry if you don’t pass the USCG color-blind test. The Coast Guard won’t dismiss your application; it’ll impose a daytime restriction on your license. This restriction means you can’t operate a vessel professionally from sunset to sunrise.

Bottom line: No matter how severe your color blindness, it won’t prevent you from qualifying for a USCG-issued captain’s license.

Learn More About Earning Your Captain’s License

You must do more than pass a USCG color-blind test to earn a captain’s license. In addition to meeting physical requirements and logging experience on the water, you must pass a Coast Guard-approved licensing exam. 

Mariners Learning System is your go-to place for education and information on obtaining a captain’s license. Fully certified by the USGS, we’re known for providing resources anytime, anywhere. We’re happy to help thousands of students pass their captain’s license exam yearly. If you want to join them, start a course today.