Do sailors make a good living?

[Barnabas]

I mean container ship sailors, merchant navy sailors, not fishers, or army navy.

The people who travel constantly on ships with liberian or greek flags from places to like Panama to Singapur, how much do they make? How many months of the year are they on the sea?

Do they **** harbour hookers or indulge in same sex sex?

[Al B. Sure!]

army navy? What the hell? army navy football game?

Why would you ask about harbor hookers or indulge in same sex sex? Asher said you're gay.

Anyway, in the US, merchant marine seamen start off around $40K/year but can earn more with higher ratings. But you actually have to have some training to be a merchant marine seaman (they have merchant marine academies).

Now to be privately employed... I don't know. let's google it.

Oil rig worker is another oddball job that seems to attract the lawless types. You kill someone, Barnabas, and need to get away somewhere isolated for a few years?

[N35t0r]

A friend's dad was in the merchant marine for a while, has some really interesting stories about faraway places

Also, my GF's father went all the way to Japan as a ship's doctor (he had just finished med school). Said it was great since he didn't even have to work that much.

[Japher]

One of my coworkers worked on container ships for a time and he liked it. Not sure what he made but he said he would be gone 2-3 months at a time but would be back for up to the same amount of time if he wanted to before being shipped out again. He went from SF to Asia and the Middle East, he's seen a lot of places.

[VetLegion]

High-paying jobs (ship's officers and engineers) are usually well paid. They're
mostly done by Europeans and low-pay manual jobs are mostly Filipinos, from
what I've heard.

[-Jrabbit]

Every time VL posts, his avatar makes me feel like he's very intense and passionate in whatever he says. Either that, or he's yelling at us.

[Barnabas]

army navy? What the hell? army navy football game?

Why would you ask about harbor hookers or indulge in same sex sex? Asher said you're gay.

Anyway, in the US, merchant marine seamen start off around $40K/year but can earn more with higher ratings. But you actually have to have some training to be a merchant marine seaman (they have merchant marine academies).

Now to be privately employed... I don't know. let's google it.

Oil rig worker is another oddball job that seems to attract the lawless types. You kill someone, Barnabas, and need to get away somewhere isolated for a few years?

I want adventure
I want to be attacked by somali or malayan pirates, and shoot them with a machine gun

I want to sleep with exotic asian women

You don't understand anything about life

[Flubber]

High-paying jobs (ship's officers and engineers) are usually well paid. They're
mostly done by Europeans and low-pay manual jobs are mostly Filipinos, from
what I've heard.

Thats in accord with my understanding although the low paid seem to come from a broad range of poorer countries. A friend of mine worked as an engineer on an oil tanker. It was a weird life-- 4 hour shift on and then 8 off and originally he was gone for months and months. But he got to see a lot of ports around the world and couldn't spend much for extended periods. I never asked about the hookers or other sex stuff.

Now he works as an engineer on a supply/standby vessel for the offshore oil industry in canadian waters. The work is routine-- back and forth from an oil rig to port and lots of time "standing by" at the rig but he likes the 3 week on, 3 week off schedule better now that he has a family and he often gets to see them for a few hours when they are in port

[C0ckney]

i thought about doing this some time ago (before i moved to brasil). there are some costs involved to start with (you need to do a basic seafaring course and get a medical certificate) and the pay is not great at first, unless you have some kind of relevant skill or trade.

this is a good website for this kind of thing http://www.donpedroshipping.co.uk, in english, which should tell you everything you need to know. there's a couple of others i know in portuguese but they're not as good or comprehensive.

[Flubber]

I want adventure
I want to be attacked by somali or malayan pirates, and shoot them with a machine gun

I want to sleep with exotic asian women

You don't understand anything about life

They all sound like fun "wants"-- Go for it

[Flubber]

High-paying jobs (ship's officers and engineers) are usually well paid.

[Pedantic moment ON] When have you seen a "high paying job" that is NOT "well paid" [ Pedantic moment OFF]

[Al B. Sure!]

[Pedantic moment ON] When have you seen a "high paying job" that is NOT "well paid" [ Pedantic moment OFF]

Umm.. it can definitely happen because the words don't mean the exact same thing. 'High paying' is usually used in comparison to other jobs (ie- a job is high paying in absolute terms compared to other jobs) but "well paid" could mean paid according to the work (ie- the compensation is fair for the job).

There are people with jobs that are high paying but feel criminally under-paid for their amount of work. First year attorneys would probably fit this bill.

[Proteus_MST]

...
I want to be attacked by somali or malayan pirates, and shoot them with a machine gun
...

Then you´re wrong at merchant vessels.
They usually don´t have such weapons to counter pirate attacks (in order to avoid an escalation).
But it seems like non lethas sonic cannons seem to be equipped on more and more modern merchant ships.

But if you want to shoot with lethal firearms at pirates, better join a mercenary company...they sometimes get hired to escort meerchant ships through pirate infested waters

[MikeH]

A friend of mine was a croupier on a cruise ship, better pay and more fun than just being a normal sailor. Of course, you have to be a croupier for many years first.

Not huge pay, but all your living expenses are paid so every 6 months or so when you get home you have a huge wad of cash to blow. He got fired eventually for shagging one passenger too many and getting caught...

[Patroklos]

As has been mentioned if you go to a school and get your certificates in one of the deck or engineering specialties then you can be looking at the 40K range to start. My neighbor across the street is a chief engineer and makes six figures.

One of the good things about the civilian merchants is that you dictate how much you want to work. If you want to accept a three month cruise and take six months off its up to you, if you want to join crews back to back to rake in the cash go for it. So it is not just a matter of what work you do, but how much of it you want to do.

Also engineers have much better schedules than deck types if you want to homestead. While there is very little for a deck qualified merchant mariner to do shore side, there are all sorts of things an engineer can be hired for both inside and outside the industry. That same chief engineer usually takes a year long contract with a repair firm one out of every three years so he can have some extended time with his kids.