Has anyone made a successful living just sailing as a relief in any of the unions? Currently I am a perm CM, with some Master experience as well, on board tankers, but am flirting with the idea of going relief and sailing off the board. With wages increasing nicely, I can comfortably make a living working 120 days a year, preferably (2) 60 day trips a year. CM and Master trips don’t come up often as relief, atleast in my union, but I feel like they pop up enough to make it work. Anyone else made it work?
How anout 4 straight months a year then the 6 to 8 off?
You could definitely pickup relief CM work with MEBA. Car ships for sure. What you doing in a month?
Considered it, but man the horror stories of getting stuck. I’ve been out here almost 20 years and 3 little kids now, it really hurts when they cry and mope about me leaving so I’m pretty dead set of 120 a year.
Workin, will probably be my last trip perm and then I’ll be putting in for a card, but yeah, sucks the timing isn’t right.
Do you have PIC with any tanker exp?
Yes, sailing as CM on Tankers now.
I had attempted a similar change, but ultimately found it challenging to do since I don’t live next to a hall. I regretfully did pass up an opportunity to get a Cm job on a car carrier; I’ve never been on a car carrier and was too nervous to sail CM with no experience on one. Since then, however, multiple people told me it’s a joke compared to tanker CM and I shouldn’t have been so nervous.
I have heard the same, if you can run CM on a tanker you can run CM on most vessels with a slight learning curve. I am fortunate enough to live within 30 minutes of a hall and many CM/Master Jobs that do get called end up on the open board.