Merchant Navy

Sea has never been so favourable for mariners , there are many hardships onboard and it's not a place for fragile folks. Joining as an merchant navy officer requires a lot of hard work, dedication, strength, punctuality and moreover discipline.

Mechant navy gives many opportunities such as meeting new people of different countries, traveling around the world, NRI status and no tax as the person who is out of country for more than 182 days don't pay tax. Perks offered by companies are also good. Most important, holidays, you get almost 3-4 months of holiday a year which is great. It's a heaven for a foodie guy as we get to eat food from different countries and food onboard is prepared by highly trained chefs is order to maintain the health of everyone onboard. In middle of sea you get to breath fresh air free from all kinds of pollution.

But it's not so good for emotional and mental weak person as they would feel home sickness. Many people during their first few days of sailing feel sea sickness and vomiting. You have to be mentally and physically fit and dedicated in order to join this profession. Social life and family gets affected very badly as you are away from home for more than half year and because of this you could not give attention to your family. This is the biggest concern for some people and they have to leave their job as seafarer and look for onshore job. If you are not strong physically then you might get yourself injured very badly during rolling and pitching of ship as it gets very difficult to balance yourself when sea is moving up and down and giving jerks. One of major requirement in a seafarer is safety, if he is not following all kinds of safety checks before starting any work then he is risking his life and in some case others life also. If safety is not followed regularly then it's very difficult for a person to survive on ship and he is prone to accidents. Anyways, this profession pays really well as compared to others.

Uniform, this is the most important part. As i have also joined this profession, wearing uniform makes me feel very very proud. We are respected by everyone. Uniform is our pride. Onboard ship everyone is your family, you have to take care of yourself as well as others present on the ship. Always keep a good working environment and good relationship with others. Vegetarians thinking to join this profession should switch to non-veg or they will suffer as onboard ship non- veg is provided most.

Almost 95% of worlds trade is done by sea as it is cheap as compared to all others kind of transportation. Which makes our profession really really important. Is this field hierarchy must be maintained and you cannot backanswer or argue with your senior, if done then most probably you will be kicked out of company. There are almost 20-25 people onboard every ship. Epaulettes of marine engineers have extra blue stripes which was a royal navy thing earlier. It's believed that this blue colour to marine engineer epaulettes was given by queen Elizabeth, which was the colour of boiler suit of engineers of Titanic. There are different kind of ships such as VLCC, ULCC, RO-RO,etc. Many autonomous ships are being tested which can be navigated from shore and due to this many of seafarers are going to lose their jobs.

English terms used onboard are a bit different, merchant navy has its own Maritime English and we are proud to be mariners.