Andhra Pradesh   

Book your berth for adventure

Sumit Bhattacharjee

Travel, adventure, money... it's all there in the merchant navy. And if you ever get tired of sailing the seas, there's the option of early retirement and onshore consultancy

As the popular song goes, "Where can you find pleasure, search the world for treasure, learn science, technology? Where can you begin to make your dreams all come true on the land or on the sea? ... ..In the merchant navy, yes, you can sail the seven seas... .in the merchant navy. A career with the merchant navy can be both exciting and rewarding if charted out properly. Broadly a career in merchant navy can be classified into two segments: deck side and engine side. While deck side deals with navigation and overall management of a ship, engine deals with the running of the ship. This week the focus is on the deck side.

What is merchant navy?

The merchant navy is a fleet of non-combatant commercial ships that deals with transportation of passengers and cargo using the waterways. The fleet includes ships of different sizes like cargo liners, tankers and passenger vessels. On the deck side the career begins as a sea cadet and then goes up the ladder as third mate, second mate, first mate and finally the captain. For a good seaman it hardly takes 10 years to become the captain of a ship. How to join as a cadet?

The minimum eligibility is 10+2 with mathematics, physics and chemistry as subjects. The candidates should essentially be unmarried and not more than 20 years of age (relaxed by five years for SC/ST candidates). Ideally there are two ways of getting into the deck side of the merchant navy. First, through the institute run by the Ministry of Surface Transport, T.S. Chanakya , Navi Mumbai, and the other is through a couple of institutes run by shipping majors like Great Eastern and Tolani Shipping in Indian and foreign companies like Wallam and Nedlloyd. There are also quite a few private institutes. To get into Chanakya one has to go through the IIT-JEE joint entrance examination, while the other institutes have their own set of selection procedures. The trainees also have to match a few physical standards to make it to the selection grade, which includes a stringent check on eyesight.

Pay packets

The packet is lucrative and that is one thing that had been luring a lot of young people. On an average a starter might get around 700 to 1,000 USD. A third mate could draw somewhere around 1,500 to 2,000 USD, second mate 2,200 to 2,500 USD, chief officer 3,000 to 3,500 USD and the captain's packet may vary from 4,000 to 5,000 USD.

"On an average a cadet might become a captain by the age of 35 years and after working for another 7 to 10 years can opt for early retirement. This happens in most of the cases, as they get well settled by that time," says Ashim Ghose, Chairman, Institute of Marine Engineers. Early retirement also helps them to take up onshore assignments. Ship management is a new concept where a few companies run the show by hiring professionals with core expertise. Today most ship owners let out their vessels to such companies to run the show. The ship management firms in turn hire the experience of captains and chief engineers to run the onshore jobs like logistics, chartering and operations. So whether onboard or onshore the career is wide open.

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