Different areas of work

[Inland Pirate Find all posts View Profile Close Inland Pirate]

Hi guys, I'm trying to develop a rough plan for my parents to show my career progression and things like that, and they're throwing all sorts of curveballs to prove I'm thinking things through properly. If I couldn't go on the long cruises and and cargo type trips, for whatever reason, what sort of other work exists? I know there's the North Sea and ferries, but could someone expand on what other options are available?

Ferries are pretty obvious, but what sort of rotation do you get? Also what sort of stuff can you expect in the north sea? It's not one of my strong points...

Also I'm guessing the pay would be lower, and you'd have to pay tax, but are there any other things that are fairly different?

[alistairuk Find all posts View Profile Close alistairuk]

Everything depends on circumstances and individual companies, but;

Cruise Industry - Is generally the lowest paid and has one of the worst leave ratios for junior positions.

As for your question, have a read of http://www.officercadet.com/content....-Merchant-Navy and look at some of the various companies web sites.

[Inland Pirate Find all posts View Profile Close Inland Pirate]

Great thanks!

[Pilot Chris Find all posts View Profile Close Pilot Chris]

Don't forget the great opportunities available once you are ready to come ashore in management, harbour roles, oil and gas etc

[EH75 Find all posts View Profile Close EH75]

What is there to do in terms of the deck side when you come ashore apart from stuff like superintendents, harbour master and surveying? Anything else in particular that people go into ashore?

[bobofinga Find all posts View Profile Close bobofinga]

Quite a lot of ex-Officers go into things like brokering , P&I and insurance ... basically a Marine mind in business/finance world.

[EH75 Find all posts View Profile Close EH75]

Yeah I was looking at brokering on the internet just out of interest but they all seemed to need some sort of finance degree background. There wasn't really anything related to coming off ship that I could see. Probably just looking in the wrong places. Understand there's a lot of money to be made there though.

[GuinnessMan OC's Resident Grumpy Old Man Find all posts View Profile Close GuinnessMan]

Yeah I was looking at brokering on the internet just out of interest but they all seemed to need some sort of finance degree background. There wasn't really anything related to coming off ship that I could see. Probably just looking in the wrong places. Understand there's a lot of money to be made there though.

A lot of the marine guys go into Surveying, P&I, Vetting, Marine Supers, Commercial Managers and general auditors roles.

However, for most of those jobs, they tend to want you to have a Master's or Chief Mates license at the minimum (actual requirement for vettings but Commercial can be done with anything).

[Pilot Chris Find all posts View Profile Close Pilot Chris]

What is there to do in terms of the deck side when you come ashore apart from stuff like superintendents, harbour master and surveying? Anything else in particular that people go into ashore?

Pilotage! (I'm biased but having done 2 years in a office marine management role I couldn't wait to get back on the water!)

My deckie mates did the following: Pilotage, marine law, chartering, harbourmaster, deck and tech superintendent, one went to be a rig manager (OIM), working in a simulator, VTS, broker, and a couple went into the business world and digressed from their maritime roots but have been very successful!

Just to add the people I know who didn't do their chief mates or masters struggled, and would always advocate getting your masters under your belt (a lot of doors suddenly open)

[bobofinga Find all posts View Profile Close bobofinga]

Yeah I've heard from numerous people that with an OOW your quite limited , Chief mate more opportunities then Masters your sorted basically.

[Inland Pirate Find all posts View Profile Close Inland Pirate]

That's interesting... Clue's in the name, but what do Harbourmasters do day-to-day?

[Pilot Chris Find all posts View Profile Close Pilot Chris]

That's interesting... Clue's in the name, but what do Harbourmasters do day-to-day?

Not a lot!! Haha no they normally do legislation stuff such as port rules and regs, oversee things like permits to work, vessel acceptances into port in some ports they oversea Pilots, VTS etc and other bits such as oil spill response, buoyage dealing with external stakeholders etc etc.

It would bore me to tears but a lot of us Pilots normally see it as a final job before retirement when your too old to climb 8m ladders in the middle of the night in a rough swell!

[Inland Pirate Find all posts View Profile Close Inland Pirate]

Pilotage sounds a lot better!

[MonkeyIslander Find all posts View Profile Close MonkeyIslander]

As for working in the Offshore industry (which pretty much equates to the North Sea if you want to work in and around the UK) the whole sector is in one way or another designed to support the offshore installations (oil rigs) on the UK Continental Shelf. This can be in:

Standby Vessels which act as rapid response rescue to people who fall overboard, act as a means to evacuate the rig in an emergency, guard the rig from vessels getting too close and in some cases are designed to fight fires.

Platform Supply Vessels bring in everything from food and water to machinary to the rigs. They can carry deck cargo and liquid cargo like fuel of cement in tanks. PSVs do a lot of work alongside rigs and tend to be in and out of port a lot.

Anchor Handlers move semi submersible rigs to and from locations and are responsible for correctly positioning a rig over a well head and mooring it to the seabed. They tend to work in groups of two or three.

Dive Support Vessels are more concerned with the pipelines and machinary on the seabed. Inside there are small pressurised cylinders where saturation divers are kept and lowered down where they do repairs and maintentance.

There are plenty of other types of ships, but they're the main ones. Typically the offshore sector, provided you can get a job in Dynamic Positioning (which in Europe at least, is now pretty much industry standard) is one of, if not the most well paying sector of the Merchant Navy. Getting your tax back is a bit touch and go. Standby boats tend to get tax back, but most others don't (although wages are higher to compensate). To qualify to get your tax back you need to spend 182 days of the year outside of the UK, be underway (as in not at anchor or attached to the seabed) and have an international crew change.