To tell you the truth, I’ve always been curious about foreign-flagged ships - particularly freighters (geared-bulk). After getting out of school, I sailed as 3M aboard U.S.-flagged oil tankers, went ashore for a little while and now I’m thinking about going back to sea. I’m in my 30s and I’m still single. I’ve snooped around on marinetraffic.com to see where some of these freighters travel to and it’s fascinating to see where they go. Anybody know anything about some foreign companies out there? Wonder what it would be like to go on a ship that loads salt in South America and then offloads it in New York, Boston, New Hampshire or Maine and then goes to Greece or some other
exotic port?
Nowadays you’d probably have to be a citizen of some other country too. I occasionally contemplate using my wife’s illegitimate dual citizenship (get some of that for myself…born here but mom and dad were not) and try to ship foreign. I’d just leave the U.S. Passport at home…bullshit, I’m not an American my passport even proves it!!!
[QUOTE=Red.Right.Return;149485]To tell you the truth, I’ve always been curious about foreign-flagged ships - particularly freighters (geared-bulk). After getting out of school, I sailed as 3M aboard U.S.-flagged oil tankers, went ashore for a little while and now I’m thinking about going back to sea. I’m in my 30s and I’m still single. I’ve snooped around on marinetraffic.com to see where some of these freighters travel to and it’s fascinating to see where they go. Anybody know anything about some foreign companies out there? Wonder what it would be like to go on a ship that loads salt in South America and then offloads it in New York, Boston, New Hampshire or Maine and then goes to Greece or some other
exotic port?
I’ve heard it’s 4 months on for officers (typically) and then 8 to 9 months for crewmembers.
I know that Americans can get Marshall Islands, Panamanian, Liberian and Singapore certificates.
Just curious about this.[/QUOTE]
I’d worry about pondering after you get a job offer. I think you may have to wait quite a long time before the job offer and any needed pondering if you only have a US license.
Should you get a job offer you should take it and ponder later. I worked on some bulkers years ago and many times regretted leaving them.
I will ad the only place I know of US mariners sailing foreign are some osv’s, drillship/modus, and a few LNG’s but not by the LNG company’s choice, part of a deal with MARAD/political scheming and usually just 3m/3ae
[QUOTE=z-drive;149515]I will ad the only place I know of US mariners sailing foreign are some osv’s, drillship/modus, and a few LNG’s but not by the LNG company’s choice, part of a deal with MARAD/political scheming and usually just 3m/3ae[/QUOTE]
In my 10 years at ABS, I really don’t recall running across too many Americans on the foreign flag ships that I surveyed, and most ships I did survey were foreign flag. Drilling units, yes, but ships no. Chevron basically operated three fleets, the US flag fleet, the fleets with Northern European officers (and the rare American) and the fleet with Italian officers. Most ships use crewing services to man the vessels. This isn’t to say that it is impossible, it just goes against the norm. Many companies do not want Americans onboard their vessels because of the perceived notion that we are very litigious. Remember that many other countries do not require seamen to pay income tax, so the wages that might seem low by US standards are actually competitive. . . .
[QUOTE=z-drive;149515]I will ad the only place I know of US mariners sailing foreign are some osv’s, drillship/modus, and a few LNG’s but not by the LNG company’s choice, part of a deal with MARAD/political scheming and usually just 3m/3ae[/QUOTE]
I am not sure if Exmar has had US mariner Master’s or C/E’s yet but they have had all the other officer positions.
Arklow has some new build handy size bulkers that tramp around the world, as was described in the first post. These new bulkers like a lot of their ships are Irish flag with some Irish masters and officers aboard. They seem to have a very diverse crowd aboard which might be helpful if you are spending four months aboard. A lot of others will have one particular nationality for the officers and crew. This might make it more difficult to adjust to life aboard if you do not enjoy a specific aspect of their culture.
Just took a look at Arklow’s Fleet List. There’s a decent number of boats under 3000-ITC. Do they really hire Americans? That sounds kind of tempting… The pay is probably atrocious (and the benefits… but hey, we’ve got Obamacare!) but sailing a tramper around Europe, or where ever, sounds really awesome. Even if only for a little while, just to say that I did it…
Most bulk carrier shipping companies hire crew from countries where labour is cheap such as Russia, Ukraine, India or the Philippines. It is very rare that you seem them looking for crew from “rich” countries.
You would probably earn more money cleaning toilets in a McDonalds in the USA than the Captains do on so many foreign flag cargo ships out there.
A Chinese national I recently spoke to aboard a major container line’s ship told me he is paid $8,500 a month. I do not believe he is paid vacation money, Captains and Chiefs work 3 months on, 3 months off. They do not need to pay taxes so that is a full $8,500 cash. I believe this is a lot more the McDonalds and I’m guessing the cost of living is a lot less then most areas in the US.
[QUOTE=btm;150204]A Chinese national I recently spoke to aboard a major container line’s ship told me he is paid $8,500 a month. I do not believe he is paid vacation money, Captains and Chiefs work 3 months on, 3 months off. They do not need to pay taxes so that is a full $8,500 cash. I believe this is a lot more the McDonalds and I’m guessing the cost of living is a lot less then most areas in the US.[/QUOTE]
A major line container ship is by no means a small-tonnage tramper carrying various bulk cargoes on short to medium distance voyages, which is the case with the company that started this line of discussion, Arklow Shipping. It remains to be seen what companies like that pay.
As stated earlier in this discussion the captain aboard the Arklow ship I was aboard was Irish. From talking to him he seems to live pretty comfortable in Ireland with his wife traveling to America for “shopping” trips at least yearly. Arklow has a lot of different tonnage ships. They have small coastal bulkers to handy size bulkers trading around the world. The Euro is stronger then the dollar, so what ever he makes you can times by at least 1.22.