Northern Marine Interview

[newguy]

Hi

Starting with Clyde Marine in January and have been invited for an interview with Northern Marine in the next few days.

Would like to know if anyone has any experience with Northern Marine and how they are as a sponsor company.

I've been preparing over the weekend but any last minute hints or tips for the interview would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

[Polaris]

I know a few lads who are with them. NMM are probably the only sponsoring company to actually take an interest in their cadets, plently of visits to the college and the cadets go the office in Clydebank every now and again. Also they're guaranteed a job for 2 years once qualified.

Interview tips, learn as much as you can about Stena and tankers and you should be all right.

[thebrookster]

I have had no bad experience with them, did a 4th Engineers interview with them a few weeks back (I got the job, hence twas a good experience ).

Cadetwise, they seemed to do all right by one of my classmates, kept an eye on him and have now sent him out to get his steam ticket. Good job when you finish as well.

I would clarify who the interview is with however, Northern Marine are also the Manning agents for Chevron (who I am with) as well as Stena, it is more likely it will be the Stena side if they have not said, but could be worth ringing Clyde Marine and asking! Better safe than sorry, and all that...........

[newguy]

I have had no bad experience with them, did a 4th Engineers interview with them a few weeks back (I got the job, hence twas a good experience ).

Cadetwise, they seemed to do all right by one of my classmates, kept an eye on him and have now sent him out to get his steam ticket. Good job when you finish as well.

I would clarify who the interview is with however, Northern Marine are also the Manning agents for Chevron (who I am with) as well as Stena, it is more likely it will be the Stena side if they have not said, but could be worth ringing Clyde Marine and asking! Better safe than sorry, and all that...........

Thanks for that, sounds good. All positive so far.

I'm pretty sure it's with the Stena side, when I spoke to Clyde Marine last week and today they were telling me to research Stena.

Probably a good idea to look into Chevron as well though, won't harm to know about the other aspects of the company.

Ta for the info

[thebrookster]

Chevron - fleet of roughly 26 vessels currently, mostly a mixture of VLCC, Aframax and Suexmax tankers, with one DP shuttle tanker operating in the North Sea. Also currently have three (I think?) LNG ships. Expansions include one more DP vessel, with possibility of more (unconfirmed), and expansion into LNG trade. Shipping is a smallish side of their operations (they are an oil major, after all), primarily oriented around safety, they are more concerned with safety than profit!! (They do not want any incidents like BP have suffered recently).

I don't think you will need much more than that, Chevron/Stena business does not seem to cross over at all, they are run completely separately. Concentrate on Stena, what I have said is a touch more than what you will find on the web!

[GuinnessMan]

Chevron - fleet of roughly 26 vessels currently, mostly a mixture of VLCC, Aframax and Suexmax tankers, with one DP shuttle tanker operating in the North Sea. Also currently have three (I think?) LNG ships. Expansions include one more DP vessel, with possibility of more (unconfirmed), and expansion into LNG trade. Shipping is a smallish side of their operations (they are an oil major, after all), primarily oriented around safety, they are more concerned with safety than profit!! (They do not want any incidents like BP have suffered recently).

I don't think you will need much more than that, Chevron/Stena business does not seem to cross over at all, they are run completely separately. Concentrate on Stena, what I have said is a touch more than what you will find on the web!

With the explosion of Shale Gas, everyone is trying to get into LNG now! A load of the discharge terminals are now trying to become loading terminals!

More concerned with safety than profit? Quite true actually, however it depends on how good their silencing people are. One particular oil major (not naming any names), is so good at it that they managed to hide the fact that a ship under their charter blew itself to pieces in the middle of the Malacca Straits! BP could learn from them!

Anywho, back to the question at hand. Chevron are quite a good company, as is Stena. Stena are huge and tend to have a hand in everything. They've got Oil Tankers, LNG, Ferries, etc. Normally you can tell what type of Stena ship someone is working on by the animal that's printed on their boiler suit. If they've got a dragon, it's LNG. Polar Bear, crude oil.

[pignutpilot]

A cadetship with Northern Marine will mean that you will sail with British officers that can actually train you, and will probibaly provide you with a job when you are finished, neither of whitch you can say about almost every other sponsor company out there.

Only thing is that most people who work on tankers find it incredibly boring, and a lot of senior personel on them can be very pretensious, on the Deck side anyways.

[Sdot]

Newguy, is it solely NMM or is it a joint cadetship you're starting with Calmac/NMM?

[ETwhat?]

NMM take cadets from two sources (in the UK) theres the ones they sponsor directly and theres ones who are sponsored by Calmac/Northlink ferrys either way you do the majority of your sea time with NMM.
To give an alternative view from Pignutpilot As far as i know none of my year directly sponsored by NMM have a firm job after it, certainly they have no 2 year pay back period ( this doesnt mean they wont be offered a job and ive seen a few newly qualified officers so it is poissible). You may sail with british officers but you may well not, or they may be deck when you are engine however ive had very little problem with getting on with the officers and crew ive sailed with and most are happy to help if they can.

As for tankers being boring, for a cadet if they are boring then your probably not working hard enough, its not really been till the end of this (my last trip) that ive had little to do in the evenings in making sure reports are written and i know what im supposed to have just done. However that is really down to you and how you cope and use the time.

Sea time wise your most likely to do it on tankers, with maybe one shorter trip thrown in on a roro, they do talk about sending cadets on tall ships which i see as pointless until everything else you need to do is done but thats up to them, i know of only one out of 5 who did go in any of our sea phases.

For the interview learn a bit about tankers and where they trade, what makes them different and a bit about the company and thats about it really the rest is to seem keen and enthusiastic for working on their ships.

[Lewis]

The NMM interview confused the hell out of me. It wasn't entirely clear if it was an interview or an induction. Then never heard from them till my cadetship started and I was told I was being sponsored by them.

[thebrookster]

To be honest, there is very little to look for in a cadet for interview purposes (no doubt someone will disagree with me :P ). All they can look for is someone who has potential, which assuming you are not a complete idiot and can show reasonable intelligence and aptitude is about it. The primary test comes on your first sea trip, where they get to see what your aptitude for being at sea is, which can't be seen in an interview. I would suspect that is part of the reason NMM send cadets on the tall ships, they will get a decent report back on everyone! The same is nearly the same for junior officers, because until you first sail you are essentially an unknown quantity.

On the side of tankers, it depends on what and where. DP Shuttle tankers do a fair bit more, but they generally do not undertake long voyages so there is a good deal of passage planning etc going on. The likes of VLCC's are a bit more boring, but then they run much longer routes, so you can spend long periods of time on watch without ever seeing anything. Deck is a damn sight worse of than Engine, we can normally find something to do, but even there boredem may eventually set in.
As a Cadet, you should be able to find something to occupy yourself with! You do have a nice TRB to work through

[GuinnessMan]

As for tankers being boring, for a cadet if they are boring then your probably not working hard enough, its not really been till the end of this (my last trip) that ive had little to do in the evenings in making sure reports are written and i know what im supposed to have just done. However that is really down to you and how you cope and use the time.

I agree. I don't ever remember being bored on tankers, just bloody knackered and wondering what the hell was going to break next!

[gadget123]

I agree. I don't ever remember being bored on tankers, just bloody knackered and wondering what the hell was going to break next!

I think which ships are "boring" varies between deck and engine.
For engineers the larger ships with more equipment and bigger engines to go wrong keep it interesting, so generally these tend to be large deep sea ships.
Whereas the ships which are "interesting" for deckies tends to be those which spend more time in coastal waters with more traffic and navigation to deal with, or are more involved in actual operations, such as anchor handling or survey etc.
Obviously what you find interesting will depend on individuals.

[SWonder]

Hi there I started in January this year at Glasgow College as an engine cadet on the PD Course and am sponsored by NMM.

I have just spend nearly 4 months at sea in my first Phase on a Stena product tanker, I sign off tomorrow

So far all my experiences with NMM have been positive, they seem to be the only company that take an interest in their cadets and make college visits.
In terms of my sea time, I did a few weeks on a ro-pax ship before leaving to join my present ship which is a special Stena P-Max design. The officers on here are a mixture of British,Croatian,Romanian,Russian,Filipino etc, all crew are Filipino. All of the guys on the ship have been easy to work with and seem to take an interest in my training.

If you have any questions about NMM then just PM me and I will do my best to help you. At my interview we were asked questions such as 'how will you cope with being away at sea for long periods of times', 'dealing with different cultures' etc....its all fairly normal questions and similair to the Clyde Marine interview just a bit more in depth. Have a look at the NMM website and 'google' Stena.

A few things that may be of use to you to know, Stena have 10 sister ships which are a special design referred to as P-Max,they are product tankers. Basically they are wider than normal with a shallower draft making more ports available to them. They currently have had a couple of these ships converted to IMO class 3 for carriage of chemical cargo along with oil. One ship is currently in dry dock in Brest,France.....which is where I am haha! Stena also have ordered a new range of chemical tankers, it seems vegetable oils and such like are becoming big business. They have 3 LNG tankers, Crystal sky,clear sky and blue sky. Two of which are very new having been built in 2011. Stena are one of the biggest property owners in Sweeden.

Hope this information helps

[GuinnessMan]

currently have had a couple of these ships converted to IMO class 3 for carriage of chemical cargo along with oil

Really? I can imagine that being a bit of a ball-ache. I mean, there isn't a vast amount you'd have to do and the cost of the new coatings, getting the CoF, etc....

How did it go?

Edited to add: Forgot to ask, did you stick with IG or did you rip it out and put an N2 plant in?