For most of the years that I was on the ATB, we had a “basic” 28 day rotation. Of course this was reliant on when we hit port and, for me, if I had a relief. Most of the time I ended up working about 9 months a year. Either because of “can you stay onboard until the next port?”, or “Hey, your relief quit”. . .always sucked when they quit a few days before crew change, or once, with my bags packed, the day of crew change. Most times it was manageable since I was young and single back then and extra days had little impact on my personal life. It also worked fairly well when we were running domestic coastwise routes. Once we lost our sweetheart charter, tramp style trips to the west coast of South America and other spots in the Caribbean made it a bit harder to maintain. The WORST style was what I had to deal with at Belcher. There, it was a 28 x 28 rotation, but the entire crew changed at once. If you didn’t have a relief, you stayed onboard until they got one for you. Then, you had to come back with your regular crew. They paid you the same, regardless of the days at sea. Supposedly, after a year, if you sailed extra days, they would pay a bonus. I don’t know if they did. I quite after six months of the BS. . . . and never got any recompense for my extra days at sea. . . .