I love sailing, even if I never sail as c/m or captain. I love having half the year off to do whatever I want. Those 75 day hitches fly by for me since all I do is work, sleep, and jerk off. I don’t even mind the 14-16 hour days that sometimes come with working on a tanker.
You would have to put a gun to my head before I’d give up my lifestyle to go wagecuck at a 9 to 5
Not my words. But I laugh every time I read it…
Buy a dumpster, paint it gray and live in it for 6 months
straight.
Run all of the piping and wires inside your house on the outside
of the walls.
Pump 10 inches of nasty, crappy water into your basement, then
pump it out, clean up, and paint the basement “deck gray.”
Have your oldest kid perform a weekly disassembly and inspection
of your lawnmower.
Yell at your neighbor if he walks outside without a hardhat and
boots.
Have your family eat the raunchiest Mexican food you can find
for three days straight, then yell at them for spending too much work
time in the bathroom.
Make your family complete an OJT before they operate any
appliances in your home (i.e. Dishwasher operator, blender technician,
etc.).
Tell your wife that when the car is moving your in charge, while
stopped or in park she’s in charge but if it catches on fire while it’s
parked your in charge.
Tell your son to empty all the garbage bins in your house, and
sweep your driveway 3 times a day, whether they need it or not. Give the
task a stupid name like “policing main deck” or “AM trash run”.
Repaint your entire house once a month.
Disconnect all your neighbors’ phones and install a phone booth
on the street.
Spend $20,000 on a satellite system for your TV, but only watch
Fox News and the Country Music station.
Have the family vote on which tv channels to watch and then pick
different ones.
Sew reflective strips to the front of all your shirts.
Expand your vocabulary. For this task watching Larry the Cable
Guy is the best way to git 'r done.
Reprogram all your phones so that you have to dial 99 the number
and # to call anyone outside your neighborhood. When you do call wait 3
seconds after every question before speaking.
Needle gun the aluminum siding on your house after your
neighbors have gone to bed.
At 10:15 Sunday morning when your children are in bed, run into
their room with a megaphone, and shout at the top of your lungs “Fire,
fire in the galley, ALERT team muster at…”
Buy $50,000 worth of radio equipment “in case” there is an
emergency and hire a qualified radio operator to “man the station”…
then make them pay your bills, arrange your travel and answer all your
phone calls.
Make your family menu a week ahead of time and do so without
checking the pantry and refrigerator.
Paint every room in your house powder blue.
When your daughter asks for an iPod fire up the old commodore 64
computer, make her type out the request, deny it 3 times, then call
fedex and tell then to keep it in their warehouse for 3 months after it
arrives.
When your kids come home with A’s on their report card buy them
a camouflage hat with flames down the side and the family name
embroidered across the brim.
Yell at your wife if she cooks anything but fried chicken for
lunch on sunday
Call the restaurant five hours before arriving and then tell the
cook to start heating up the steaks
Each Christmas when your aunt jane and uncle jim visit make them
stay on the porch until they have watched a 2 hour video of yourself
pointing out all the fire extinguishers and smoke alarms in your house.
Make your kids pay 50 cents for each soda they drink.
Never call a local repair man when your stove breaks. Instead
call someone in the UK and pay for their flight. When they arrive call
the taxi company and give them strict orders not to pick the repairman
up until the stove is fixed.
Sleep on the shelf in your closet. Replace the closet door with
a curtain. Have you wife whip open the curtain about 3 hours after you
go to sleep. She should then shine a flashlight in your eyes and mumble
“Sorry, wrong rack.”
Designate a room in the house as “The Control Room” then make
your kids sit their in front of a computer screen for 12 hours. Tell
them that if anything turns red they could cause the family millions of
dollars.
Tell your neighbor to call you when ever they see a thunderstorm
in your area.
Put lube oil in your humidifier and set it on high.
Leave the lawn mower running in your living room eight hours a
day.
Every other month buy green or red marine primer and put it in a
paint sprayer. Have your 2 year old spray it over the roof of your house
onto your neighbor’s car. Ignore his complaints.
Head to the local dive bar and ask the first retired guy you see
to sit in your home office scratching his nuts. Make him a plaque
reading “company man” and tell him to “remind” you daily about every
squeaky floor, dripping faucet, late mail deliveries… Tell him to
invite his friends over and when they show up move your kids into the
garage so they have a nice bed to sleep in.
After shopping rent a cherry picker offload the groceries.
Each morning jot down the wind speed/direction, barometer
reading and the amount of fluids in your hot water heater, gas tank,
lawn mower… convert the figures you get into whatever unit of
measurement you did not use and write it down in 6 different places.
Have your kid monitor the police scanner 24 hours a day "just in
case there’s an emergency.
Pay the editor of your son’s middle school newspaper an
undisclosed amount to deliver his paper by helicopter to you each
morning. When he arrives throw some leftovers into a Styrofoam box and
offer it to him.
Find a bridge simulator with 360 degree views, enroll in ship
handling class then spend 1/2 of your time looking behind you. Spend the
other half of the time on the phone explaining why the main deck lights
are out, why you don’t know/care what the water depth is and performing
unit conversions in response to the question “Can you give me that in
something I can use??” …do this one every hour.
Once a year throw a huge bar-b-q. Buy crawfish, steak and shimp
then overcook them and offer your guests only O’Douls and soda pop.
Go to your local elementary school and ask the principal to send
you a weekly list of the stupidest things the kindergarteners have done
that week. Call a meeting with your family every Monday and read the
list with a straight face.
Place toohpicks, picante sauce and a can of Tony Chachere’s on
your kitchen table.
Call 911 and tell them to send a helicopter each time your son
falls off his bike.
Eat only at all-you-can-eat buffet restaurants that specialize
in fried foods. Bonus points if you have a view of the cooking area from
your table and the place primarily employs nose-pickers and
butt-scratchers.
Twice a day (or more if possible) get everyone together in as
small a room as possible (a closet or bathroom should do) and have a
meeting to listen to someone tell you what you did all day. Bonus points
for reiterating statements multiple times (i.e. “Like Joe says safety
is…”).
Buy a trash compactor, but use it only once a week. Store the
garbage on the other side of your bathtub.
Walk around town with safety checklists. Each time you find a
city employee doing something stupid write it down on an index card,
tell the person he screwed up then give the card to the mayor to read
off at the town council meeting.
Explain to your wife why you don’t know how to calculate tides
250miles offshore. Once the lightbulb comes on spend at least one hour
answering questions like “Well why do you have a tide table book if it’s
useless?”, “Can’t you get the computer to tell you?” and “Don’t you have
a depth sounder like on a bass boat?”
Set your kids alarm clock to go off at 10:15 every Sunday
morning. Make them jump up and get dressed as fast as you can making
sure they’re wearing a plastic hat and metal in their shoes. Have them
run out into the backyard and uncoil the garden hose.
Install a toilet in every room then leave your door open so that
everyone walking down the hallway knows you had chili-con-carne for
lunch.
Each time your family does something you think is unsafe or just
plain dumb take a digital photo of it and send it out to everyone you
know.
Install a fluorescent lamp under the coffee table and then get
under it and read books.
Give your wife a CB radio and tell her to call you each time she
turns the car, fills up the gas tank or it starts to rain.
Install speakers and a telephone in every room of the house.
When you want to talk to your kids announce it over the speakers and
give them the phone number of your room. Repeat at lease once to make
sure they heard you,
Take hourly readings on your water and your electric meters.
Go to your children’s school and yell at the teacher for
allowing them to use blue ink on their homework.
Surround yourself with people you would not choose to be with.
Suggested choices are those who: chain smoke, fart loudly and often,
snore like a steam locomotive on an uphill grade. Also, they must:
complain incessantly, seldom shower and/or brush their teeth. Lastly,
they must use expletives in speech like children use sugar on cereal.
In-laws will do nicely.
Raise the thresholds and lower the top sills of your front and
back doors so that you either trip or bang your head every time you pass
through one of them.
Every so often, throw the cat in the pool and shout “Man
overboard, starboard side” Then run into the house and sweep all the
pots and dishes off the counter. Yell at the wife and kids for not
having the kitchen “stowed for sea.”
There are plenty of jobs out here, and they aren’t going away anytime soon if you have the credentials.
Sailor51 nailed it:
PIC DL
TOAR
DP
You will always find work with a PIC DL
Officer shortages have become a real problem since COVID and won’t be slowing down in the next 5-10 yrs.
Shipping on box boats, not so much.
Good luck to you
Right, I understand that and am cool with it. I’d rather be up on deck doing that than down in the engine room.
To beat a dead horse, going to sea gets old. Well, the being gone part does once you develop a family life at home. It gets really hard to leave when you’re leaving more than an empty house.
I did exactly what you’re talking about. I sailed deep sea globally for 7 years, then I transitioned to coastal work on 21/21 or 28/28 schedule, and now I’ve found a really fun job that has me home every night while still getting to drive tugs and work the waterfront.
Some really good advice people have responded with. Get as many endorsements as you can early on, especially if you don’t know what you want to do. One of my regrets is not buckling down and upgrading my license sooner.
The industry might have an artificial shortage of officers at the moment. Take advantage of that and really think about where you want to work, and on what type of vessels. If you land somewhere you don’t like, switch it up. Now is the time to get the experience and figure out what works for you. By the time jobs start getting tight again, hopefully you’re at the place you want to be.
If you want to be a pilot, I recommend looking for ship assist work in the port you want to do it in. Start looking at the associations requirements. Its not what you’d think it is. A lot of places you can get in there with master limited or towing time. Hopper Dredging is also a good way to get the ship handling skills and pilotage time.
Awesome advice, thank you.
Yeah I plan to get whatever endorsements I can get at A&M. I’m pretty sure they offer all of them,
My initial goal once I get the license is I want to go deep sea on container ships and tankers. See how long I can make that happen depending on how reality sets in as far as leaving a family at home like you say. I’d really like it to make it to master but anything can happen.
I’d love to come inshore and run tug boats on that 28/28 schedule if I ever want to come inshore. I do understand that starting on a tug even with an unlimited officer license means starting toward the bottom of the chain.
As I said though, I think my real end goal on the deck route is to be a pilot. I live just southeast of Houston, so down here I have the port of Houston pilots and the port of Galveston pilots. I know for Houston, they require at least at 2M unlimited with 6 years sea going experience, and something about harbor assist (I’m assuming this is what you mentioned about doing assist work on ships).
I can’t find any information on what’s required with Galveston pilots.
If you do go on tugs don’t sell yourself short and seek out a tug 2nd mate position or a training mate position. You don’t necessarily have to start out as an AB depending on the company.
This is easy to say while you’re young. If you find a partner who can handle it great but being 50 years old and single, spending 1/2 the year working and jerking off is a miserable life. While everyone else has a family, you’ll be wondering where it all went wrong.
Get going now on the pilot connections. As much a networking requirement as sailing.
They generally want you young and with a big license/meaningful experience.
Does this mean hanging out at the pilot station or…?
Interestingly enough, one of the guys I currently work with… One of his family friends is a master in the merchant marine, and his dad is a Houston pilot. Both went to Texas A&M.
I do plan to talk to him but having other connections in the pilot world would be good too. I talked to a Matagorda pilot that I ran into one time when I was like 17 fishing down his way. He showed me around the pilot boat and stuff, very cool guy! Also an A&M graduate. I have him on instagram actually.
The pilot association has dinners where prospective pilots can insurance interact with the pilots and schmooze. See if your coworkers dad can get your invited. Getting in is largely a popularity contest so be likeable.
This past Galtex election round, they made 2 pilots from the 91 they invited to interview. They had the two before the interviews started, just was a formality.
Recently job posting where I work were:
C/E
1/AE
2/AE
3/AE
QMED
3/M w/DP basic
AB
Crane Operator
The industry has a need for people, not only officers. Eng Dept has been on high demand, constantly.
As for pilotage I was lucky enough to go in and out of a bay that in my time off did the required “in & outs” shadowing other pilots. Now the hard part begins drawing the chart before the ATT letter expires, get the endorsement, getting into the pilot association and can you actually do the job.
This is why a lot of union mariners prefer shipping off the board. It allows more flexibility as to when and how long one ships depending on what stage of a relationship one is in.
For example taking night jobs, short relief trips or staying coastwise when just starting to date someone. Taking summers off to be with the kids,Or a long voyage when you spouse/partner is getting tired of your bs,
Good point. Working 28/28 or 60/60 can make it hard to meet someone and connect before you’re off.
3-4 months off at a time, then maybe 60 away, before doing a longer 90-120 hitch while meeting someone would definitely be better.
Nothing better than meeting someone and telling them hey in a 4 days I’ll be gone for 2 months just wait for me until then!
Damn lots of engineers needed. That’s crazy.
Where are you working that there isn’t a shortage of licensed deck officers? Everywhere I’ve seen or heard of has a shortage right now.
Haha yeah I completely agree. If you don’t want to get dirty DO NOT come out here.
Your post should be shortage of engine officers.
Well, that would be telling.
I see it this way: If vessels are able to leave the dock, contracts are not being lost due to manning issues and we are able to get a relief on crew change day…how is there a shortage other than in peoples own minds?
If there were, there would be boats tied up, lost contracts, company’s scalping one another for their employees, hiring bonuses, pay increases. I don’t see any of that happening and probably not anytime soon.
If companies are unable to attract talent to their own individual sector that’s simply a “them” problem, an economics issue for them to solve, not necessarily a problem for the industry as a whole.
The worst case scenario honestly, is we may be asked to work over from time to time.
There are almost always several others who are more than willing to do just that for extra cash.
We can just as easily decline and still go home nine times in ten because there’s always someone who needs it.
Most companies like to keep a deficit of crew, it saves them money on insurance premiums.
So again, if there is a shortage? In what sector, at what companies? I’m not seeing it here.
Maybe in the Union, perhaps on ships? Is it on ATB’s moving oil where they wring out every ounce they can from their guys and they aren’t getting compensated nearly enough for putting their license and health on the line pumping cargo and then being a mindless “Buoy Mate” the other 90% of the time?
There’s not a shortage of warm bodied officers here, we really do have enough. Literally people lined up applying for senior positions that rarely open up because everyone is so comfortable.
1500 newly minted officers have been thrown into the mix, (see link posted by Mr.Cavo) further diluting the talent pool with inexperienced mariners and further devaluing our licenses. They won’t stop pumping them out anytime soon either.
There’s a glaringly obvious shortage of experience, competency and skill but not Mariners, at least from my perspective.