https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdMYEKwxTyo Here’s a new upload from maritime Youtuber …
He really makes a lot of good points. I have to agree with him on pretty much everything he says. Yes, things are much, much better for sailors than in the days of Richard Henry Dana’s “Two Years Before the Mast“, but they’ve sure as hell been going downhill since the 1960’s!
Yes, the ships are built with all the latest technology, but the crews have been cut in half and more! Our workload has been constantly increasing, with less and less personnel to do it all!
Yes, our pay has gone up- but not nearly as much as it would take to keep up with inflation. Considering all the expenses we now have added on in order to be allowed to work offshore, we’re actually earning much less than we were in the past.
Yes, communications have improved- for the ship. Not necessarily for the crew. There are still so many ship owners/operators who think of their crews as nothing more than another tool to use and abuse, not human beings like themselves. People who also have a life off the ship (if they have people who choose to stick around and wait for the sailor who may not be able to contact them for months at a time- which is not very likely now a days when everyone expects instant gratification).
I said I would never again work for someone who treated me like that, but I never in my life thought things would get this bad out there! Even with the advent of the STCW, which I immediately saw for what it was (an easy way for shipowners to rid themselves of ‘expensive’ first world crews), I still never imagined how small the box I’ve been shoved into has become!
I always figured that when it got slow offshore, I could ship out on a tugboat, or a tanker, or some other kind of vessel. Well, due to the US Coast Guard constantly changing the rules (and not always putting out the notifications they are required to by law), it is no longer possible to switch sectors like we could before.
Now, if you work on a tanker, you must stay on a tanker or you will lose your ability to ever go back to that kind of work without paying enormous fees to be ‘trained’, (ex: $1,100 for course, $500+ for lodging, $300+ for transport, $300+ for food). To do the same thing you’ve been doing for 5, 10, 15 years in the past ! Same goes for almost every type of vessel now. Passenger vessels only want people with that specific type of experience and paperwork. Towing vessels can only take people with towing endorsements. DP vessels will only take people with DP certificates. Etc.
I’m lucky I’m not a sailor from the Philippines, or China, or any of the other ‘third world’ (meaning low wage) countries where the overwhelming majority of seafarers come from now a days. For an American, working for MSC (Military Sealift Command) is probably the longest hitch out there. It’s supposedly 4 months long. I hear from friends it’s more like 6. Those poor crews from the Philippines are working for 2 years at a time before they can go home!
Most American ships are in pretty decent shape. They’re in great condition compared to a lot of the crap I’ve seen sailing around the world from other countries. Ships with ‘flags of convenience‘. Owners flag their ships outside of their own countries for financial reasons. They can get cheaper crews, bother with less rules and regulations, pay less taxes and fees, etc. Some of them are decent, but many of them are not. Check out this report by the ITF, they do a pretty good job of keeping track of this stuff. Or this, which makes the ITF report look tame.
Watch the video for a pretty good run down of what to expect shipping out. He doesn’t really get into the good parts. But then again, there aren’t too many good parts left anymore. 🙁
Any of you sailors out there, I’d be very interested to get your take on both the video and my comments on it.
As a non sailor i can only comment from the standpoint of an interested outsider. It would seem that a combination of technology and job outsourcing has forced many Americans into those smaller boxes as time passes. It’s in large part due to the “boiling frog” syndrome, a gradual decrease that goes unnoticed until the squeeze is no longer an academic exercise, something happening to the other guy. By the time you realize that “THEY” (the machines or the folks in some other country) are taking YOUR job it’s too late to protest. I watched as the digital age made deep and lasting changes to my industry, photography, but was fortunate enough to have reached retirement before it drastically lowered my income potential. While I don’t have an solution and you can’t bank empathy, I do wish you Godspeed as you work through this problem.
Thanks for the well wishes.
You’re right about the boiling frog syndrome. I’ve been bitching about all this stuff in my industry for decades now and no one pays any attention. Now we are all hurting and there’s nothing I can see to do about it.
I know what you mean about photography. I am looking at that from a different angle. The digital revolution allowed people like me (amateurs) to take great pictures (and even fix them up on the computer after they’re taken). I’ve been trying to find a way to earn a few bucks with my photography, but with so much competition now I think it’s pretty much impossible. You must have to be one hell of a salesman, to go out and get your stuff shown in places where enough people will see it so that there’s some chance a few people are interested enough to buy something. I have never been a salesman!
I do try to sell my photos online with stock agencies (earn only 25-50 cents per sale) and places like Society6, where there’s SO much competition, I don’t think anyone has even SEEN anything I have on there. It’s very discouraging.
I keep trying to find some way to break out of having to find a job! The only kind of job I really want is out there on the water and there just aren’t any of those right now. I don’t think there will be any until the price of oil goes up to $65++/bbl. The ‘experts’ are predicting that won’t happen for at least another year (or 2) (or maybe never with the increase in alternative energy).
I wish I was old enough to ‘retire’!!
A couple of quick examples of how the digital age changed my industry. I was in day care photography. Our standard sales method was to print full packages of photos and let the parents take them home, make a selection and return the unwanted prints. One parent returned a package intact with a nice note declining to purchase any of them. She inadvertently substituted her scan of one sheet instead of my original. The home computer, digital scanner and high quality printer changed the way we marketed. Shooting an awards banquet for a major Houston hospital, an event where the bulk of our income was to come from candid photos taken at each table, only to find that the event planners had placed several disposal cameras at each table with instructions for the guests to use them and turn them in after the event for free photos to be distributed later. Today everyone is a photographer and the perceived value of the professionally produced product is in the tank.
I can see how the digital revolution would have taken away a lot of your photography business. Are you able to earn any money from it now? Or have you completely given up on trying to?
I have been trying to sell my art online, but with millions of people competing to get their work in front of buyers, I don’t think this is really the way to go either.
What are you doing now with your art?
I’m retired now, living on social security and writing. For the past three years I’ve been throwing a paper route for the Chronicle (which pays surprisingly more than you might think for a three hour nightly gig). I could make enough in day care photography working alone but I moved out here to Waller County and my client base is just too far away to service properly and maintain a reasonable volume. I wrote a manual on the day care photography business which is available on Amazon. Have you looked at Vida or Society6 for your art?
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=rick+Fontes
I wish I could retire! I just turned 55 so I’ve got a LONG way to go before I can collect SS. Seriously, I doubt I’ll ever be able to collect a dollar of all I’ve put in there over the years. I’ve done all I could to make sure I didn’t need that money- invest in 401K, property, savings, etc.
But I didn’t count on being thrown out of work at 54 yrs old!
I’ve been trying for 3-4 years now to find other sources of income besides my job. Was hopeful that I could someday earn something from blogging but still have not come close to finding the audience I think is necessary for that to happen. I’m also trying to sell my photography and other art. I do have some stuff up on Society6 but with millions of others on there I don’t see how it’s possible for people to find me! I have not sold anything on there (yet). Here’s the link https://society6.com/captainjillsjourneys
I also have stuff on bigstock, canstock, alamy, dreamstime, etc. I’ve made a few bucks. Around $10 so far in about 2 yrs.
I’m really trying to find a way to move to Mexico or some other country where it’s more affordable to live. If I can escape obamacare and find a way to earn enough to keep paying the mortgages here, I could probably actually retire. Or at least last long enough to wait out the slump in oil prices and come back to work when they start hiring again.
I am looking for room mates now. If I can find someone I can trust to leave alone here, then I will probably take off and do that.