Think young, attractive, healthy people of both sexes. And then, there’s the smaller cohort of commercial guys like me. Trucker caps, older, beer bellies, fucked up hair, gimps and scars, F-bombs everywhere.
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Further on down that article is a feast of insecurities regarding MITAGS, but I can’t say he is totally incorrect on all counts. I once had an instructor launch into a time share sales pitch just before the class was concluded. Everyone in the room was looking at each other in disbelief.
I stayed in Neptune housing in Ft Lauderdale while going to MPT, The place is full of yachties taking classes or waiting to get on a yacht. They would go out and party every night and come home waking me up at 3 am. Other then that, it was nice staying in a one bedroom apartment for only 45 dollars a night.
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I lived in Lauderdale in the 80s while commercial sailing. Yachties all over the place. I did interview with a guy who ran a crewing service for some pick up work. Even sat down and talked, at length with the captain of Adnan Khashoggi’s yacht. It was too difficult to get a schedule and keep my much higher paying “day job”. Interesting to speak with others on that side of the maritime world, though.
All very obviously flowing from the deep well of an inferiority complex. The guy is a pumpman on a bunker barge who seems to be resentful of never quite squeezing through the hawse.
Read a few of his archived rants and the source becomes clear.
Yachties are not mariners, they are hoteliers whose hotel is mobile. 
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Mariners are not mariners, we are mechanics, janitors and middle managers whose workplace is mobile.
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Cruise ships are BIG mobile hotels too, but uglier.
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And working on a drillship, well in the words from someone I met once, “is that like working at a BP gas station?” Yes, totally the same! I make sure the cokes are stocked, the coffee is hot and the parking pads and fuel skids are clean, exactly the same! Lets just say that only became a one night stand.
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Well I guess it IS like working on an oil well that moves.
Consider mariners and over-the-road truck drivers.
Drivers have no one to relieve the watch, no radar or lookouts.
They need to find places to stop, get a meal and use a restroom.
Collisions and groundings do occur. At much higher speeds.
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Or just truck drivers. . .
Over-the-road trucks and drivers are an essential element in the supply chains that move cargo from factory to pier and then again from destination pier to consignee.
As with ships, unavailability stops the container where it is.
It may clog the pier space, leaving the ship waiting offshore.
And, containers waiting offshore, may leave the the truck waiting at the pier.
We’re all in the same boat, metaphorically speaking.
You joke but that’s how I described my time as an Engineer on a tugboat to family members who don’t quite get what we do.
“I’m basically the Mechanic and Janitor”
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some yachties ( on sailing megayachts) have done the hard yards in big weather so they are seamen and many that choose sailing over power have been sailing since childhood.
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I always just get an Airbnb or stay in the Hyatt Place, the Hyatt was especially appreciated while taking Cel Nav since there was a desk, and quiet for studying.
I can’t imagine trying to study while people are partying.
For the shit classes like BST renewal, I would be okay with a crew house.
That is very true. A former acquaintance of mine (we were members of the same Catholic parish at one time) was a Kings Point grad who had spent a few years as the captain of one of the big racing maxis (one of Kilroy’s Kialoas I think but not sure if I’m remembering correctly).
At the time I knew him he was the Sr. Captain for Tidewater Barge Lines in Vancouver, WA. He’s probably well into retirement by now but I see LinkedIn has him as an “Asst. to the President.” Sort of the commercial maritime equivalent of what racing sailors call the “after-guard” I suspect!
Being skipper of a well funded and well campaigned maxi would be some people’s idea of a dream job for a mariner. Of course, like with any skipper’s job I’m sure, it depends on who you’re working for!
When those boats are being seriously campaigned, they put a LOT of ocean miles under their bottoms! Probably the majority of it as “positioning” miles and those usually with no owner and only the paid crew aboard…which according to some of the maxi race boat crewmen I’ve known, is the BEST time to be aboard!
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There are better jobs,
living on the megayacht for a rich owner as crew but be the Captian of the race yacht but only work when the race boat is going to a regatta…
I agree I believe that you are taking about the Hyatt that MPT gives you a discount? I’ve been there and it is nice. I always tell the front desk at any hotel, That I’m taking a class and need a room far away from people Mostly kids, The larger hotels seem to be able to accommodate me Top floor at the end of the hall Usually works.
Yes that’s the one, four shuttles to MPT and back per day, or as needed. breakfast and a desk. When I took CelNav it was $85/night and something like 18 days total was well worth it.
It was up to $180 “discounted” last time I tried to get a room there later last year before Christmas for DP basic, so just stayed in a Airbnb again within walking distance.