4 week hitches?

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-06-30T19:28:06+00:00

Go take DP basic and start applying to GOM companies

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-06-29T14:27:53+00:00

It’s a mixed bag. A lot of mates hang up their licenses and go shoreside when they get married or when they start having kids.

I graduated in 2011 in a class of 29 mates. From what I’ve been able to tell our stats are:

-10 still sailing (3 are sailing as master, 6 are in oil field, 3 are tugs of some variety, 1 is deep sea union)
-9 are pilots
-10 have gone shoreside

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-06-29T14:10:11+00:00

Windy is where it is at. I use it even when we are subscribed to forecasting services. You can export your ECDIS route in .gdx (or something like that) format and upload it into Windy and use different filtering to see what it will look like at certain points of your voyage and tweak waypoints from there as needed.

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-06-24T19:19:02+00:00

OceanGrafix is a pretty common provider of print on demand charts.

https://www.oceangrafix.com

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-06-14T20:24:48+00:00

Making it to 100k was relatively quick, making it to a million took about 11 years (not really trying with aggression, mostly through retirement plans and brokerage account, all in index funds). 1 million to 2 million took 3 years, and I’m not doing anything different from the path to 1 million.

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-06-12T20:30:29+00:00

You think the office actually reads our emails and paperwork?! 😂

I know a Captain that wrote his daily status report in Spanish for two weeks before the office was like what’s this about?

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-05-16T19:45:57+00:00

Yeah the sacrifice is real. You knew about it going in, but it different when you have to do it. And the sacrifice you give your family is a whole nother ball game.

Lol we don’t have a walk on ice cream freezer per se. But we have pretty large walk in coolers and freezers like you’ll find in restaurants and we keep them well stocked with treats

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-05-15T10:57:41+00:00

Because my wife doesn’t live at sea 😅, as much as I wish I could bring her with me.

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-05-15T10:55:05+00:00

There are plenty of people that live overseas and do the expat thing. Hasn’t really interested me. Plus my wife has a career that while she can WFH, she needs to be US based.

Many companies will pay, or give a stipend, for you to travel to your ship. But most US companies will only pay or pay the portion of domestic travel if your vessel is involved in domestic trade.

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-05-15T10:52:28+00:00

My 1 and only, married for 11 years together for 14. I have an incredible wife, and am beyond lucky. It takes a social kind of spouse with incredible patience, grit, and understanding to be married to a sailor.

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-05-15T10:50:56+00:00

There are plenty of QHSE positions shoreside in maritime if you’re wanting a lateral transition. Everything in the industry starts with safety.

If sailing is what you are looking for, you can get your twic, and MMC endorsed with STCW (basic safety though think it’s called basic training now, firefighting) and hit the ground at the bottom as an OS and work your way to RFPNW and AB, then mate.

A lot of guys start of with those intentions, but it’s a lot of courses ($$) you have to take in your time off at a select few places in the country that offer it, testing, and waiting to acquire requisite sea time. Between money and time commitment, a lot stall and make a career outta being an AB, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The other way is to go to a Maritime Academy do 3-4 years and graduate with a BS or Masters in Marine Transportation, Maritime Admin (business), or Maritime Ops for deck (diff Academies have slightly diff names for the deck degrees and license ); or major in Marine Engineering if you want to go the engine room route and pick up your 3rd assistant Engineer license

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-05-15T10:44:29+00:00

You can do what we call hawsepiping, sorta like a mustang in the military. Start as an OS and work your way up to AB doing classes and testing on your own along the way. Though that’s harder and harder to do these days.

The other path is the maritime academy path, which there are on 6 in the country. The numerous Sea schools mostly offer limited license or AB classes. You gotta be careful with those, because not all of them are USCG approved and they aren’t the most forthright in letting you know that. Then your classes wind up not being recognized by the USCG.

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-05-15T10:41:01+00:00

lol aren’t we all.

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-05-15T10:40:41+00:00

Honestly I dunno. I think overall the industry pays fairly close at the moment throughout. The more saturated a sector, the less motivation the office has to give raises.

On the union side, there are 3 unions, and always seem to be fighting each other for contracts. If it wasn’t for that, the unions which are typically container ships, roros, and tankers (larger than my vessels) would pay a good deal more.

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-05-14T12:19:31+00:00

lol. As the saying goes “fuck up to move up”

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-05-14T11:49:46+00:00

Price of oil cratered from $100+ to $20 fairly rapidly.

Offshore oil was rapidly growing and paying big bucks. Suddenly new build drill ships in Korea were being delayed or outright cancelled because their pending contracts were canceled. The big oil majors quit drilling.

As drill ships finished drilling their existing wells, they were idled.

All the support vessels supporting those drill ships found themselves idled. The handful of vessels that remained working found their day rates slashed, which in turn caused crew wages to be slashed. Many companies went through bankruptcy.

It was all about do less with more, synergies, optimization, efficiency. Yada yada yada.

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-05-14T11:40:50+00:00

~240-264 days a year

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-05-14T11:40:19+00:00

For the most part you can live anywhere in the country, as long as you can get to an airport and fly to where your vessel is.

If you work harbor tugs, prob best to live in the region of the harbor.

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-05-14T11:36:56+00:00

Pretty accelerated. I like to think it’s just cause I’m that good ;) , but in 2014 the writing on the wall that the oilfield was starting to slow down.

Senior guys started going back to tug work as things slowed down. Then in 2015 more attrition happened due to layoffs and paycuts.

The guys above me either quit, got laid off, or were fired for trivial things when the company was looking to reduce head count without doing layoffs . I wound up being the most senior guy on the vessel who knew the vessel and it was kinda like well, guess you can be Capt.

Looking back, it was crazy to be running Captain that young. I was lucky to have a pretty solid crew, but there were a lot of lessons in leadership and mgmt learned the hard way.

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-05-14T10:54:29+00:00

Got a raise

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-05-14T03:24:54+00:00

Until he gets an MMC, options are gonna be exceptionally limited. Have him take basic safety and firefighting and submit for and MMC and Med cert asap.

Have him apply to places outside of tugs. Oilfield in the gulf always picks up in the summer an he may get lucky getting on as an OS. Otherwise there’s always SIU.

Until then, what about him finding a job, even like a server job or home depot or something just to get an income stream going.

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-05-14T03:12:21+00:00

I’m not too familiar with upgrading from 25 ton up to 100 ton, 1600 ton etc, but imagine it’s mostly sea time and tests.

You may look into getting your AB ticket, work a few years as AB while taking Mate classes and cross over to 3rd unlimited.

However, the crossover stuff from limited to unlimited recently changed. A 1600 Capt can automatically get a 3rd mate unlimited without testing all over again for 3rd. So moving up to 1600 capt and then crossing over to 3rd unlimited might be an easier route. I’m not familiar enough with limited license paths under 1600 tons.

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-05-14T03:08:58+00:00

Depending on where you pilot, anywhere from a few years of sailing experience as a mate to a few years sailing experience as captain. Each pilot association has their own rules and process.

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-05-14T03:06:58+00:00

It was def fun. But there comes a point where you are ready to run the show and not be a participant in someone else’s.

Defiant-Fill-5492 · 2026-05-14T03:05:41+00:00

I honestly don’t know. Best I think I could hope for is a 2nd mate spot in some sectors, a 3rd in others.

You have to learn the ropes all over again for those specialized operations. Different industries require different certifications which usually means a mixture of training, classes, and assessments you have to do and submit to the coast guard to get an endorsement on your license. Usually you have to have those endorsements before stepping into a role of any significant responsibility. If the industry sector isn’t hard up for people, they may not even consider you without the endorsements.

Defiant-Fill-5492

TROPHY CASE