WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A MERCHANT SAILOR

WHAT IS A MERCHANT SAILOR ? We are the men and women who work on the big ships that are along the docks in the ports of America; on rivers, the Great Lakes; not only on the big ships but those who work on the tugboats pushing or towing barges. The people who work on the ferryboats, the Dinner Cruise vessels also on the gambling vessels in short we work on any vessel that can be hired for charter in the oil fields offshore to carrying goods to and from Europe and Asia we do the work.

• We come from every walk in life from every state and territory and there are around 500,000 of us out there maybe 1,000,000 I don't really know but our numbers are slowly growing..

If you want to join those of us that are merchant sailors I will explain the processes. to begin with you will need:

1. a Merchant Mariners Document, a STCW Certificate, you get these from the United States Coast Guard Regional Exam Centers this information can be found at this link;

www.uscg.mil/nmc/new_begin.asp http://www.uscg.mil/nmc/new_begin.asp
the requirements can be found there. I want you to know that you will need to go to school
to get the training needed to receiver the STCW Certificate from the Coast Guard.
There are several school around the nation that offer this training, and all students of the
Merchant Marine Academies receive this training as part of their studies. These
Academies train you to be an officer and you receive a collage degree...

There are several privet schools that offer the STCW training (Standards of Training,
Certification and Watch keeping) for Seafarers. You can do a search for Merchant vessel training schools licensed and licensed.

This is my union's school:

SIU - School History

Unlicensed Apprentice Program. > Hands-On Training ... In 1985, the school undertook new programs for training SIU crews for Military Sealift ... This course helps prepare students who wish to sit for their FCC license exam. ... Merchant ships and smaller U.S.-documented commercial vessels that operate on oceans or ...
www.seafarers.org/phc/schoolHistory.



I have up loaded some video's of my last ship and some of the ports that we have been to for your entertainment and study.


This is the first post of this blog even though I started this in 2007. There have been other events such as the 2 to 8 months that I work on ships per year.

I have written a book while at sea Titled, A Merchant Sailors Guide to a Online Retirement. I thought that I had edited the book properly but reviewed it in PDF form today and found some link errors that I must correct. When I do I will post it in part to this blog.

Will be going back to work Tuesday for near 4 months and will not be able to publish any more articles for awhile. Will be going to Hawaii, Guam, China and return to Oakland, California. Bringing back the goods that our country needs to survive on that are manufactured there.

Trusts that you enjoy the video's and that the information of this first post has been entertaining.

Kermit Bengtson
blog address;
http://orangepickel.blogspot.com