Although I would love to make the same pay as the Captain of the vessel while I am not serving in that position at the time I will have to respectfully disagree with you. I would suggest that it is a far better idea to get paid for the job and responsibility you currently hold. If you are a Capt. (ie. 3rd, 4th, 27th) then I would stand my ground that you have the same responsibilities and payment as those that hold your same license. A Mate…lower due to obvious reasons. Now, they used to have such a minimal convergence between all of these positions (whether you desire to call them Capts, Mates or whatever) salary-wise that there was not the desire for one to step up other than ego, etc. With this system I can see creating actual incentive.
To be honest, I believe that the industry should pay you based on your license, position and time involved. I know this will not work for the same exact reasons that these raises are coming about. Those reasons are that there are a multitude of vessels being built or slated to be built and now a bidding war of sorts has started. There will soon be a huge demand for mariners in the OSV sector and the writing has been on the wall. For every new vessel you will need around 18-20 qualified mariners to man them if you include offtime personnel. A little less for those companies that don’t provide cooks, etc. So lets just round that off to 15 people per new boat to be very conservative. Chouest is building 14 and HOS 17 new vessels. This has been widely publicized. All in the 300+ foot range. This means 6000ITC endorsement or Unlimited license. Then God only knows what other companies are building. GOL, Aries, Tidewater, Candies, Harvey you name 'em! There are a lot of boats coming down the pipeline. But let’s just stick with these two companies with aggressive build plans. That would mean, by my conservative estimate that would need 465 people total to man these vessels. That’s way more than the extra they may have on hand already. I’m sure it’s more then what the industry contains already in addition to the current fleet that is manned. A bidding war was foreseen.
Now, having stated that…I have to wonder what kind of detriment that a bidding war of wages can cause. When you all NEED the license and you are all pulling from the same pool. By necessity it can get ugly. Good for us…in the short term, but are dayrates for vessels rising as fast as the wages. I can’t begin to know the profit margin of these boats but I do know the rates haven’t seemed to rise as much as the salary in the last 10 years. Like I said…I don’t know the profit margin (and apparently it has been VERY good for some) but my concern still has to fall into long term employment. Don’t get me wrong, I want all I can get…I’m just worried how long I can get it. Then there is flooding the market with boats but I digress. Lets all hope I’m concerned for nothing.