post stood for “Port out Starboard home” when steamers went back and forth to india. this was so you were on the shady side of the ship. I guess it may be better if you could be on the port side going west. I’ve narrowly missed being bombed to spray in iraq and shot at and missed but being stuck aboard ship in the ocean is a different deal but I guess I’d take it on for around $350K provided we had a couple escort frigates or something. I think that thread is being diminished daily.
I’m sorry, for a moment you sounded like a crewing agent I knew.
On the plus side the sea conditions at this time of the year are conducive to abandoning ship on the other hand it facilitates those pesky unmanned explosive boats.
Another article today in the same vein…
Just saw this - from last week
200k tax free with an escort I’ll do it as 2/3M. If you want me at CM or Master I need 500k tax free, destroyer escort, overwatch, ESIT onboard, and I fly home when we hit the pier.
This is your price to do…what? Just make the transit through the strait? I think you’re likely to run into a serious under-bidding situation. Hell, I don’t need or want to sail at all, but if a recruiter said we fly you in, you run the gauntlet, and we fly you home? Who wouldn’t do that?
The question is hypothetical anyway. How many US mariners are actually on tankers waiting to transit the SOH? Judging by the responses to the original question there aren’t many willing to make the run in order to support the war effort and keep making America great again even given the chance unless they get more than an admirals annual pay as a reward.
Apparently a lot based on the lack of traffic transiting the strait right now. The question was what’s your price, that’s my price. I don’t have a lot of confidence in our navy to keep me from getting blown up.
Fair enough. The probability of me receiving that call are considerable less than getting blown up, so I couldn’t even give you a fair price assessment.
However, as far as the vessels standing by, that is mostly due to decisions by owners and insurers.
Edited: Critical edit made.
Damn skippy. I’d rather take sealift to Taiwan (the next war d’jour?) on a liberty ship than transit Hormuz until they get defense covered better. It’s too much of a bottleneck and Iran has good coverage for the whole strait.
It’s interesting that the question is phrased as how big of a bonus do you need when the historical way the question has been phrased is “Do you want to be drafted as drone bait in the sandbox or sail your ship?”
Considering that the average age of US Merchant Mariners is 41 (trying to find the source in that, will update)… that threat means very little to a lot of us. 
lol. Lmao.
Go look up the average age of a draftee in Ukraine.
I was on a container ship trading through many ports in the Persian Gulf in the early 80’s during the Iraq - Iran war. We got 100% War-zone bonus. This was an extra days pay for each day in the gulf. Laughable. Saw many destroyed ships and thought “WTF am I doing here”. I was young then but with the benefit of hindsight and age I doubt if I would do it now even for the Big Bonus. Shipping Company’s generally don’t care about their crews, only their ships and cargos.
Good to hear the voice of experience. I’m sure I personally didn’t expect that level of reluctance.
So friend, how would you say that your base pay then compares to today’s base pay?
Okay, I did it. It was mid 40’s. Now you go Google the words, “US Army Boot Camp” using the Images option & imagine your crew wearing camouflage running those obstacles courses 
. The boot camps would kill more Americans than what we lost in Vietnam. Battalions of John Candys character Dewey Oxburgers from the movie Stripes. If they have old, out of shape, overweight, don’t give a f*ck cannon fodder serving a war effort aboard a ship best leave them on there.
Not to mention the new standard… I dunno about everyone else, but I won’t pass tape. 
If I could find a ship with my union, I would come out of my 3 week old retirement and do one run at least through the straits for a meager 2K/ day salary. I am older, shot out and have much to live for, but the thrill of one more wartime run and a bit of patriotism is enticing. Most, but not all millennials and Gen-Z’s wouldn’t understand.
Do you know if that was something the company came up with as an incentive, or something paid/required by union contract based on a war-zone declaration, or a government mandated war-zone pay?
It was in the British Officer’s Union contract that covered just about all officers deep sea, both engineers mates and masters, the masters being the last to amalgamate.
The payment was negotiated in the 70’s I think so it was already in the agreement.