# Shortage of mariners worldwide



## Donald McGhee (Apr 5, 2005)

I see from the latest Maritime NZ magazine that there is apparently a shortage of mariners worldwide. Surprising I would have thought, as shipping volume doesn't seem to have shrunk as such.
I know that the young chap who crews for us on the paddle steamer wants to make the sea his career, but finding any NZ based companies would be a bit of a challenge, ensuring he has to look offshore for an apprenticeship.
Not much doing that flies a red ensign of any sort these days!


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## Alistair Macnab (May 13, 2008)

*Professional Mariner Shortage....*

It's been coming for a long time ever since containerization took hold. It's only a matter of time before ocean going 'platforms' completely unmanned are brought into service supposedly on the basis that, unfortunately, there are no longer any mariners! A circular argument if ever there was one! First get rid of them, then complain that there aren't any!

And when these sea-going 'platforms' are managed by the head office, who will be the 'office captain' to supervise and control them? Why, the promoted tea boy, that's who. Or else some hack from the accounting department. Anyhow, both will be guided and instructed by a fat operational manual devised and sanctioned by the legal and financial departments with any deviations from the printed instructions subject to applications in triplicate, debate, and any variation permitted and promulgated long after the situation that called for new instructions is over and the 'platform' probably turned turtle because of faulty load distribution or icing on deck.

Don't get me started...! Or do you want to know what I REALLY think?


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## Donald McGhee (Apr 5, 2005)

Figured that would be about the way of things, I agree with your sentiments Alistair. There are no longer tickets as we once knew them and time spent ashore for the FG tickets is almost equal to time at sea. 
My recent acquisition, Skipper Restricted Limits ticket is a credit card, same size, same shape, fits in my wallet, but I can't get any money if I stick it in a money machine. It's valid for 5 years, which will be OK by me, as I probably won't be involved much after my early 70's!
As in all things we are subject to the modern way of life, which is all rather tawdry.


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

Not allowed to get on the booze and no time for a bag off - what sort of life is that?

John T


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## holland25 (Nov 21, 2007)

Be glad you knew what it was really like.


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## tiachapman (Mar 25, 2008)

lovre that post Trotterdotpom.


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## beedeesea (Feb 28, 2006)

trotterdotpom said:


> Not allowed to get on the booze and no time for a bag off - what sort of life is that?
> 
> John T


Probably the same as you've got now, John.

Brian


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## chadburn (Jun 2, 2008)

The Mariners are there, not working on Cargo Ships but Offshore, far better wages and conditions as long as you are happy to work on the smaller vessels rather than work on vessels as long as 3 Football fields (according to the Press(Jester))
Some Offshore Companies have been re-jigging their manpower levels in the last few months but for those who have been retained it is still better than cargo vessels.


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## DURANGO (Aug 22, 2005)

Give me the cargo ships that we where in any day


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## sidsal (Nov 13, 2007)

Who on earth would want to go to sea in the ugly monsters that are around today and with so much hassle.
Looking back life was good at sea despite the Spartan conditions.


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## Stephen J. Card (Nov 5, 2006)

Look at the cruise ships today. Cadets come on board... their shoulders slumped from the weight of gold. The bridge is nothing more than a fancy computer game with a view! They might spend some time on a tender to take passengers.... but they don't even get a chance to drive them... the AB's do it. I don't blame them at all, but there must be more with the job than. Heck... they don't have to put flags up... or can't find the way to get there. When going for their first ticket it should spend 50% of their time on 'other ships'... a bulker, a tanker, a container ship, a general... if can ever find one!


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## Stephen J. Card (Nov 5, 2006)

sidsal said:


> Who on earth would want to go to sea in the ugly monsters that are around today and with so much hassle.
> Looking back life was good at sea despite the Spartan conditions.



I'd rather in those 'Spartan' days than the 'clinical' boxes around to today. I went on board one of the large Princess ships to visit a friend.. master of the vessel. Luxury by the mile. Beautiful. Finally a door that said, "No Admittance". Open the door, the master's cabin and officers... some of them.... mostly down on lower decks. The deck was painted green steel. All plain white steel bulkheads. Open the door and a small box... a bedroom, a sitting room and a cupboard. Horrible. I've seen better crew cabins in ships or say... 40 years ago. No thanks.


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## LouisB (Dec 23, 2007)

beedeesea said:


> Probably the same as you've got now, John.
> 
> Brian


That had me laughing - good reply. 

LouisB. (Scribe)


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## kypros (Feb 13, 2010)

Yes agree with all these sentiments watched a tv show on a voyage from the far east recently the vessel seemed soulless and no heart,asking myself why this seemed so and realized there was few people about,we all seen the best years at sea to be a seaman,progress they call it.KYPROS


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## DURANGO (Aug 22, 2005)

kypros said:


> Yes agree with all these sentiments watched a tv show on a voyage from the far east recently the vessel seemed soulless and no heart,asking myself why this seemed so and realized there was few people about,we all seen the best years at sea to be a seaman,progress they call it.KYPROS


 But I took it so much for granted my time was the late 50,s and the whole of the 60,s I got fed up with having a good time I should have stayed till about 1975 I reckon and then worried about what the future holds I think it was seeing the ships that where going to the breakers and the threat of having to work duel purpose deck and engine room that made me leave along with joining the Shaw Saville ship Athenic in Auckland and taking her to the breakers in Kaohsiung ,standing at the wheel as we came alongside the Blue Funnel ship Sarpedon and seeing all those other fine old ships that where under demolition was for me the final straw and I saw it as time to move on best regards to all hands .


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## ART6 (Sep 14, 2010)

My first trip was in a 40k ton tanker in the Far East trade -- eighteen months away before three weeks leave, and I loved every minute of it. Booze was plentiful and cheap, and a carton of **** cost only a few shillings. The engine room was staffed with ten engineers, and each watch had six ratings. Runs ashore were plentiful in exotic places like Singapore and the Philippines. Joining a ship meant flying to distant places, always first class (our officers travel first class!). 

Then a change to another company and on the Caribbean trade, taking cargoes of oil from Maracaibo to Aruba, down the South American coast, and up the US cost as far as Boston. Again, long trips, but places to see and great laughs in the smoke rooms off-watch.

But came the military coup of the bean counters. Suddenly there were no longer junior engineers on watch -- they were replaced by "mechanics", who were not time-served or qualified other than a head office training course but were cheaper, and since they couldn't gain seat time and sit for tickets, they had no incentive to bother their a***s most of the time. The fact that most of them did actually apply themselves to their duties was to their credit, because they were simply pawns in the elaborate financial games played by accountants. Now there were only five engineers per ship, but the ships were getting much larger, and there were only two ratings per watch.

The bean counters quickly resolved that latter issue by introducing the multi-purpose crew principle, where all ratings were considered to be available to work in the engine room as needed, but upon arrival, say, at a port, would be required to go on deck for tying up. That meant that in the event of a problem in the engine room we might find ourselves with two ABs and a cook to assist us with a boiler clean.

I was recalled from leave to head office, and told that I was required to undertake training for these multi-purpose crews. I refused point-blank. I asked the marine department manager (an administrator, not an ex-seafarer) if he could imagine being in the engine room of a steam ship, perhaps as the donkeyman handling the oil burners in the boiler fronts in a temperature up around thirty degrees Centigrade or more, and then being called on deck for the ship to berth in the Hudson river where the outside temperature was well below freezing? In my anger I asked him just how many men he had to kill before he realised the stupidity of his strategy.

That started me thinking. The trips were getting shorter and the leaves were longer, but the work was getting harder. Runs ashore were becoming rare, because there was no spare manpower capacity to permit them. Off-watch games and laughs in the smoke room no longer existed, because the few of us left were either on watch or in our scratchers. Joining a ship or leaving one meant flying cattle class -- not a pleasant experience on a long flight from the US to Heathrow, sitting in a baby seat in the middle of a row of obese women with colds!

Time to get out! My contract was due for renewal, and I refused it. I was very sad to leave the life I loved, but it was no longer that, and it was clear to me that it would only become worse. I got myself a job as the deputy chief engineer in a power station where my superior was a marine engineer with a combined chief's ticket. We spoke the same language, and now we had manpower at our disposal -- no trumped-up ranks, just foremen, chargehands, and qualified time served fitters. Sheer luxury! 

Now I look at the new era of seafaring, with these ugly huge box boats roaming the seas and running into each other, or the VLCCs that are so huge that the bow can't be seen from the bridge, all of them manned by people in solitary confinement without even the solace of a few drinks. Manned by "officers" who have no-one to officer over but who will take full responsibility when the head office makes it's usual bollicks of it's instructions.

That will change. It is only a matter of time before ships (including those ugly box boats) swan around without any crews whatever, and then the days of the professional seaman will be gone forever. Just a question to the bean counters though: when the ship that your small staff in the basement tell you that your vessel has suffered engine failure two thousand miles out in the middle of the Indian Ocean, what will you do? Answer: sack the lot of them and claim on insurance.

I am glad to be out of the life I loved and which, if it had not changed so much, I would go back to this minute. Then there was a sense of adventure, of showing the chief engineer and the senior second that one could do it. Being proud to stand on the control platform of a steamships engine room in the blistering heat and think "Whatever happens, I can deal with it!"

Oh well, those days are long past. Where did I put that bottle of Irish Whiskey? I think I need one now.


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## Bill.B (Oct 19, 2013)

ART6. Good post and I totally agree. Ships are soulless places now and not what I would want. It is not only a shortage of sea staff but the support staff too. My company can't find technicians for field service either. There are a handful of techs who sailed left and we are all in the 50+ bracket. I am well North of that. About 5-8 years ago they published and article in the local rag that said the average age in the local marine industries was 55. The days of looking at a vessel and saying, that's a German or Swede, or trying to read the name on the bow that has been painted over is gone. I do not see much maritime interest onboard at all. I have a UK flag vessel tomorrow and expect to be the only Brit onboard just like the last one I did. They have been saying for years that I should pass my 40 odd years of experience on but nothing ever happened so like all the other companies it will be another patch job when we all retire. We were all so lucky to have a life when we were sailing and not a life sentence.


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## Burntisland Ship Yard (Aug 2, 2008)

Perhaps the shipping companies should take heed of what B&Q etc have done, use mature peoples. I know my tickets have expired [probably] but I recon with a few months as junior engineer, I could stand a watch !


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## China hand (Sep 11, 2008)

Art 6, you have said it very well. A whole host of us on this site can stand up and say " we had the last of the good times at sea".


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## Barrie Youde (May 29, 2006)

Of course Art 6 has said it well. But that is a long way from saying that he has said it all.

The day of unmanned ships is, in all probability, not far off. The matter of "what happens when something goes wrong (aboard an unmanned ship)" has long been recognised. Humanity has not yet descended to the point where our oceans might be regarded as a scrapyard (although the day when such a philosophy might have applied remains only too recent). Mankind has at long last recognised its own vulnerability and that of its environment, at least to the point of condemning the abuse of our (its) own surroundings.

The day when the requirement for mariners to protect our environment against wanton damage by crude and necessary commercialism is as yet far off. Fewer mariners will be required, for sure. But those who pick up the bits or ensure, as a matter of last resort, that wreckage ought not to occur, will remain necessary for the foreseeable future. Of that there can be no doubt.

And the need to be able to tie a bowline, properly and quickly, remains unlikely to diminish at all.


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## James_C (Feb 17, 2005)

When unmanned ships do appear, I can only imagine the fallout when the inevitable happens and a distress situation occurs where an unmanned ship is the only vessel nearby and is consequently unable to render any assistance.


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## Barrie Youde (May 29, 2006)

#21

Quite so, but it will still be necessary for a human to pick up the bits, somehow or other, lest the human nest be fouled irreparably.

And what about cruise ships? As mankind proliferates its own vulgarity by increasing numbers of such things, which passenger is ever likely to pay for an unmanned cruise?


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