This week we start a new eight-episode series highlighting Coastal Transportation’s unique Summer Mariner Program.
The program places merchant marine academy students on a variety of the company’s vessels. Between May and August, the trainees will sail for about seventy-two days on the company’s 2000-ton Alaskan freighters as deckhands.
But before that they get training in lashing down cargo, mooring vessels, and driving lift-trucks. Best of all they make the Curlew/Oyster expedition show in this video, something done by no other company in the world, designed to train mariners in classical navigation skills.
Curlew is the company’s own dedicated training boat.
This is no internship. It’s an intense deep-dive into coastal piloting and industrial seamanship, with participants making real deckhand wages.
IN THIS EPISODE: In May 2024 the trainees board the Curlew for the first day of the expedition and head north in the Salish Sea.