So what's it like working on an oil tanker?

Do people have days off? How much time off do they get when they’re not at sea? I think the way some cruise ships operate, the employees don’t typically get many days off, just hours off in a day, and they’re expected to work every day. What kind of food service is available? (I’m not in the market for a tanker job, just curious.)

The Smithsonian Channel runs a series called Mighty Ships which often shows a variety of merchant vessels. I am no expert but a lot of shipping companies work in the 3 month on / 3 month off type of work, and when you are on you work every day (but while underway it’s not so much work-work but keep an eye on things and fix / correct what needs it).

Food service appears to be delivered by professional cooks, several meals a day in decent wardroom accommodations. Of course for TV everything looked great, but I am sure any decent shipping company knows a well fed crew is a happy, reliable crew.

And no doubt companies of lesser repute have harsher work situations, poorer food and worse pay as appropriate.

I was reading up on the 2004 sinking of the Bow Mariner on the web last week; it appears the ship may have exploded while doing something wrong with their ethanol tanks (probably flushing them at sea & polluting the ocean).

With ships out of sight for so much time I can only imagine what really goes on out there.

I’m no expert but I imagine they work rotating shifts. Being “at work” 24/7 must get tiresome even though you’re not actually working the whole time. I’m sure they have some sort of recreational type things for the crew to do during down time.
I hear Exxon has the best bars on board.

I don’t have any direct experience with tankers or bulk carriers, but in the maritime industry as a whole “several weeks/months on, several weeks/months off” type schedules are the norm. While underway you’d work every day, most likely for 12 hours. You probably wouldn’t want a day off: despite the romantic notions the general public has, life at sea is BORING.

There was an article in The New Yorker recently describing the author’s passage on a freighter (possibly trans-Atlantic?), a practice that used to be common and cheap but is now rather rare and expensive. As someone who spends upwards of 100 days at sea a year, the words of a Romanian first mate or engineer resonated with me: “They don’t pay us for the work, they pay us for the homesick.”

My brother was a radio officer with P&O tankers for some years. He generally worked 9 months and got 3 off. And yes, life at sea was very boring most of the time. Tankers and bulk carriers don’t even go into ports most of the time, and turn rounds are pretty fast. When his time was up, they would fly him home from the nearest port.

Not an oil tanker, but my uncle was a deckhand on a container barge on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers in the 90s. He would help load the ship near Pittsburgh and unload when they got to New Orleans.

He would typically work 24 days and 24 days off. It would take about 22 days to go from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. He would work 2 six hour shifts a day. When on the river, he would spend most of his working time on ship maintenance and helping get it though the locks. When he got to New Orleans, the company would pay to fly him back to Pittsburgh or, if he wanted more pay, take another boat up the river.

Ummm.

Did you just start an “Ask the Oil Tanker Crewman” thread in the hopes that an oil tanker crewman would come along and pick it up?

Okay. Good luck.

I’ve sailed on merchant ships as a job. As mentioned the schedule is you work continuously 7 days a week on the ship for some period of the year, and you’re off and at home (or where ever else you choose to be) 7 days a week for another period. The comparative lengths of the two periods varies by rank, by union deal (where there are unions) by company and flag of ship. The two examples mentioned, of basically 2 days for each day off or 1 for 1 represent the approximate range, AFAIK (my direct experience is awhile ago, and as mentioned it varies by country: the main reason crews of various nationalities vary widely in cost is different total pay per year, but also some nationalities work a higher % of the year). How long the blocks of time aboard and ashore might be also vary fairly widely.

On modern merchant ships with their small crews almost everyone is a watch stander. Traditionally for big oceangoing ships work consisted of two four hour watches per 24 hrs, say 12-4 AM and PM. On shorter range ships and tugs it’s often two 6 hour watches, IOW there are only two people aboard for each watch standing position rather than three (and that’s going to affect to the ratio of time aboard to time ashore, if you’re working 12 rather than 8 hr days, all else equal). The Captain and Chief Engineer might not stand watches, but nominally work a day shift and practically speaking be on call for advice or to take over the bridge and engine room watch respectively in critical situations. In days past there were more other crew members with 8 hour day shifts (for maintenance, clerical work etc) but those positions have mainly disappeared from workaday non-passenger ships.

Thank you! I appreciate the moral support. I also looked back at quite a few of your posts, and in not a single one did I find where you were questioning why the OP was posing a question, so I appreciate the special attention for that, too.

Hmm. You seem to have taken my post as being a threadshit.

While it was not my intention to threadshit, when I re-read the post through the lens of your response, I find myself unable to mount a very spirited defense against the charge.

Please accept my apologies; I will try to do better in the future.