Russell Marinari, 23, graduated from the Maine Maritime Academy in Castine in May and is now working as third mate on Deepwater Titan, an offshore drillship in the Gulf of Mexico. Marinari works three weeks on and then has three weeks off.
“I summered in Boothbay and knew I wanted to work on the water,” he said. “I have a full-time salary and I only work 50 percent of the year. I think that’s pretty cool.”
The excitement of working at sea for months and exploring new places has long attracted people to nautical careers.
But a number of factors, including the pandemic, have left the United States with a marked shortage of merchant mariners, who largely work on commercial ships that at times transport weaponry and supplies to the U.S. military, provide disaster relief and support international trade.
Thomas Lord, a 1987 Maine Maritime Academy graduate and now executive vice president of Seiden Krieger Associates, said the shortage of mariners has been a major topic of discussion recently, and that many mariners have postponed retirement so the true magnitude of the situation has yet to be felt.
“The crisis is with the mariners, the shipboard folks,” said Lord. “They are raising the alarm that we need more mariners.”
A 2021 report from the Baltic and International Maritime Council and the International Chamber of Shipping described a shortage of around 26,000 officers certified to work on ships in international waters and predicted it would triple by 2026.
The report forecast that there would be a need for an additional 89,510 officers by 2026 to operate the world’s merchant fleet. BIMCO said there were at the time 1.89 million seafarers operating over 74,000 vessels around the globe.
Ann Phillips, a retired Navy rear admiral who heads the Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration, told a Congressional committee last year that the mariner shortage was exacerbated by COVID-19 but has been a problem for several years.
During the pandemic, hundreds of thousands of mariners were stranded at sea during the peak of the crisis, with many ports refusing to allow crew ashore. Some were at sea for 20 months, according to reporting by The Washington Post, even as demand for their services skyrocketed.
Ninety percent of the world’s goods move by sea, a figure that became glaringly evident during the pandemic, as containers stacked up in ports, waiting to meet insatiable consumer demand.
Phillips cited a 2017 study that found the U.S. did not have enough mariners with unlimited tonnage credentials to sustain a full activation of the Ready Reserve Force, which has around 50 vessels and supports the deployment of U.S military forces worldwide. The study found a deficit of 1,839 mariners.
“This optimistic scenario assumed that all qualified mariners would be both available and willing to sail as needed,” she said.
Recruitment efforts
Roland Rexha is secretary treasurer of the Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association, a union that dates back to 1875 and represents U.S. Coast Guard licensed officers in foreign and domestic trade.
He said the shortage has become acute since the pandemic. To appeal to new recruits, he said, the industry needs to offer higher wages, internet access onboard, better food and a schedule that makes it possible to raise a family.
“If we don’t have enough people, it then becomes an issue with our supply for our sailors and our soldiers,” Rexha said. “It would be catastrophic. We deliver tanks, helicopters, ‘bullets and beans,’ as they say.”
George Tricker, vice president for contracts and contract enforcement for Seafarers International Union, said his group has an active recruiting effort and is streamlining its application process.
“As an industry, we have to make ourselves more visible,” he said. ”Back in the day you were on ships that stayed in port for several days so that you could sightsee. Now you are in and out of the port so quickly. It’s less of an adventure and more of a job.”
Zach York, 23, graduated from Maine Maritime Academy last spring and spent the summer working for a ferry company part-time and joined a union in August. He shipped out in late September as third mate on Major Richard Winters, a cargo ship.
York, who is from Sewell, N.J., said going out to sea ran in his family, noting that his dad attended the United States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point and he has been racing sailboats since he was six.
“It’s a big learning curve,” he said of his new job. “It’s not a training ship. It’s not the same culture. You’re learning a lot every day and trying to put the pieces together, as they say.”
Each job comes with its own contract. York had the option of a 60-day posting or a 120-day posting and opted for the longer one because it will allow him to be home for 115 days.
Industry shifts
Craig Johnson, interim president of the Maine Maritime Academy, graduated from the academy 30 years ago and sailed with the Merchant Marine for seven years before coming ashore.
Johnson said the academy does its best to give students a taste of life at sea. During their four years at the school, they go on three 75-day training cruises — two on an academy vessel and one on a commercial ship.
He said the industry knows it has to make life better for mariners, starting with connectivity, noting that most ships now have Starlink satellite internet. Not long ago he was on a training vessel and received an alert that his son’s blood sugar was low. His son was miles away, yet Johnson was able to address the issue immediately. This is a big change from before.
“When you went out to sea, you were very disconnected from the world,” Johnson said. “Thirty years ago you lined up at a payphone with 20 other sailors to make calls. In the Nineties came the cell phone that you could use when in port. But now you can do your business at any time.”
He is a member of a working group looking at the mariner shortage and said it’s clear the issue is no longer simply about wages, but amenities.
“This shortage of qualified mariners is something I have never seen before,” Johnson said. “It’s a defense crisis for us too. This is a huge problem worldwide.”
Johnson said at the end of the day, one has to have stamina to work at sea.
“You’re working seven days a week, 12 hours a day. You’re really on call all the time. That’s why people on shore love the mariners,” he said. “They are problem solvers. You can’t call AAA when you’re out at sea. You have to solve problems in real time.”
