Seafaring can be lucrative - the elite, such as gas-tanker captains, can earn $100,000 for six months' work - but the isolation is a heavy price to pay.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Duty is the great business of a sea officer; all private considerations must give way to it, however painful it may be.
I worked offshore as an oil worker for a couple of years.
Everybody has to build double-hull tankers, but charterers don't want to pay for the extra costs.
I would read fishing reports on the road and then it just occurred to me: I should go to sea school and get my captain's license, see if I can get paid to be out here every day.
I've been in tankers for 50 years, and I like it. For me, it's still fun.
I think the people who end up being extraordinarily successful - it's been my observation - tend to care enormously about status, particularly business people, right? Because the only point of money, you know, the only reason to have a 300-foot-long boat is because they're bigger than 200-foot-long boats.
It's difficult on a ship to get away from your job because that accommodation house, which is where seafarers live, is their workplace, it's where they live, it's where they relax, it's everything, and it's just hard to get away. And seafarers often refer to their job as being in prison with a salary.
It's extremely difficult to get these jobs because you can't get a job on a ship unless you have seaman's paper's, and you can't get seaman's papers unless you have a job on a ship. There had to be a way to break through the circle, and he was the one who arranged it for me.
The sea is my business.
These vessels are out of sight, out of mind. They are exempt from minimum-wage requirements, from Coast Guard inspections, OSHA regulations and other safety laws.
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