Alot of the bigger OSV companies are starting to hire again. Which is a good sign i think. I always looked at a QMED position as a training engineer. I could be looking at it wrong tho. Mabey they mean there is a probationary period to where you have to demonstrate that you know what your doing well enough to hold a watch. Most large OSV’s are running a 3 to 4 man engine room. Chief, Assistant Engineer and 2 oilers or QMED’s. what ever the COI calls for.
Thank you! I came in at the tail end of that era in 99. I can still remember the TRICO boats with about 3’’ of freeboard when loaded haha. man, those must have been some wet boats haha. My first company was with John E Grahm and sons. I still see those little G-boats everywhere. Thanks again for the help!
You find out who your real crew is when they start taking away crew members and going COI minimum manning. Some people on OSV’s are bad about saying “thats not in my job description”, thats engine room or thats deck department’s problem. But when they are down to minimum on deck and the engineer or oiler is helping tie up the boat or rig and the A/B’s are helping in the engine room because the engineer is swamped or the master or mate is cooking for everyone to help out with cooking because the A/B’s are busy rigging. thats when you see peoples true character.
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Oh those folks are on tugs too!
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Harpoon – Master of Towing Vessels / Pilot Vessels here in the Great Lakes & Blue Water. The Great Lakes union experience is better than many coastal experiences, from what I’ve gathered. Usually, the company makes you an offer and you join the union either optionally in “Right To Work” states, or as a “Condition of Employment” in what they call ‘closed shop’ states, like Minnesota. Wages, benefits and work schedule / conditions are generally better at unionized firms, but these days, not always. You’ll have to shop around and compare. Personally, I’m a bit of a hypocrite, as my I own a company supplying working vessels under contractual agreements to various companies. And, while I am a card carrying I.L.A. member, we’ve chosen to not be a unionized shop, but it’s less about the money and more about the control and management style we prefer to operate under. A longtime union experienced man once told me (my father): “If you own a company, pay union wages & benefits or better, treat people with respect and consideration – and they’ll never need to organize.” We have and they have.
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EdTugMan thank you for your info! This is greatly appreciated! As you can tell im very ignorant when it comes to unions or different companies and how they operate and their hiring process. I have been in my little OSV box sense 2007. Recently I decided to do something ive wanted to do for years now and go to work on Tugs. Ive always heard that a majority of the Great Lakes, East and West Coast companies are union crewed. In the last month i have applied to 12 different companies nation wide both Union and non. Ive heard back from 3 (so far). Vane Bros put me on there waiting list of authorized applicants. Not sure if thats good or bad but at least they got back to me. I had a interview with Crowley a couple days ago. Well, it was a pre interview i guess. It was kinda like a personality interview that caught me off guard a little haha. Both of these companies i hold very high on my list so im hoping something will play out and i can get my foot in the door and kinda get a feel on how it all works. I confident anywhere i go i will be liked. Im a good Engineer, reliable, easy to get along with and i can cook ok. Its just a matter of me getting my foot in the door. Thank you again for the info and everyone who took the time to comment.
Word of advice if you get hired by a union shop. Join when they tell you & pay off your initiation fee asap. I found out some 20 year, pro-union yankee men still hadn’t paid off their initiation fees but if an outsider comes up & tries that you get a heap of shit about it. Don’t talk bad about your union even when others are, it will take years for you to get the right to complain about your union. Never vote against your union, if you don’t like the way things are ran, go somewhere else. No matter how screwed up something might seem to you, never let on like your non-union shop before did it better or suggest they treated or paid their employees better. Be humble, roll with the punches & you’ll be fine.
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Thanks for the advice Sand_Pebble! Thats sound advice. I kinda got a habit of keeping my head down and staying off the radar as much as possible. I figure i got another good 20 years of this so i plan on finishing on a good note.
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Most tug companies are not union. With most of the tug companies that are union, the company is firmly in control of hiring and firing.
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True.
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You’ll find a lot is the same & some not on union tugs. I worked 10 years with a GoM OSV company & left to go work for a union tug company in NY Harbor then to their ATB’s. I didn’t go for the lower wages, charming Staten Island personalities, tolerant dispositions or sophisticated accents but for the religiously enforced even time schedules & not as many ups & downs with that market. I was newlywed at the time & I told my wife I was done with long international hitches & working 7-9 months a year. I switched to 3 weeks on, 3 off, always made it home the same day as cc. When things did get slow they laid off by a seniority list which had its pro’s & con’s. For me, the cons started to outweigh the pro’s & I moved on after about 4 yrs.
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Absolutely charming and sophisticated. 2nd chuckle of the day.
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I’ve sailed on different types of ships with different crews both union and non-union.
To paraphrase Tolstoy - All happy ships are alike; each unhappy ship is unhappy in its own way.
Unhappy, dysfunctional crews will use whatever tools they have to make each other miserable.
I’ve seen the deck and engine use the monthly safety meetings to bicker, sometimes they go for emails to the DPA and sometimes they use the union.
Take away those tools and the crew will find another avenue to spread hate and discontent.
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Good for you man, I’m the same way. While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with working on one type of vessel, for one company or one region your whole career probably my greatest satisfaction that I had during my career was the completely different experiences, regions & cultures that I immersed myself into by moving around. And I noticed what suits a person best now might be completely different 5 years from now. I worked with some older laid back guys at some rowdy outfits that started their careers with the most professional companies but they grew tired of it & wanted to wind down as they aged. I worked with other old dudes at top notch companies who were professional as could be who started as near pirates at fly-by-night mom & pop outfits who got feed up with risk taking & uncertainties & wanted to finish their careers on a straight line. We should add the words, “when it suits you best” after the idiom “Get in where you fit in”.
Making an observation based on my experience. Human nature doesn’t change but remains constant regardless of the job.
Military ships, tugs, deep-sea, coastwise have more in common then differences.
Based on my experiences I would say work ethic doesn’t change but professionalism, maturity & priorities do. Nowadays I try my damndest to do it exactly by the book following my companys well written SMS policies, some might even construe that as being an asshole. I get paid good money to do so & it works for me now. But I see myself going back to tugs where things were done by how you were shown & by how things were always done in the past. There’s still tug companies where their books are the bare minimum to get approval from regulating bodies. I worked with plenty of guys who are calmer, less critical now than what they were 20 years ago & near polar opposites who would never again consider pulling the shenanigans they used to do on a daily basis when they first started.
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There is the saying, “A fish rots from the head down”. If there is good leadership from the senior guys it encourages the positive aspects of human nature and nips the bad in the bud. This has been stated in different ways and forms in a lot of topics here. This is true whether or not a Union is involved.
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If none of the options you have contacted work out, don’t hesitate to give IBU a call. For engineers they are not as strong of a union as MEBA but they have a lot of the Foss and Crowley jobs, and a decent pension/benefits/pay.
It is very cheap to register ($50 a few years ago) and you don’t have to go to the hall every day, I believe Foss or Crowley will contact you direct if they need someone. This was how it worked when I sailed with them briefly as a QMED. They seem to always be looking for Chief-Limited’s with any experience. So, just register up and then maybe you’ll get a call out of the blue this spring or summer with an offer for work.
My main issue with the deep-sea tugs is that there was no real schedule just because of the nature of the work with trying to link together jobs and keep the vessel making money. If you do get hired, let us know what the current situation is for engineers!
Ok thanks for the info TxsCaptain! I will give them a look tonight. I
was curious about the schedule as well. Do tugs send everybody home
when the boat is off charter or contract? My long term goal (couple of
years from now) is to work my way into the ATB’s or even ships.
Ok thanks for the info TxsCaptain! I will give them a look tonight. I
was curious about the schedule as well. Do tugs send everybody home
when the boat is off charter or contract? My long term goal (in a couple of
years ) is to work my way into the ATB’s or even ships.