“Global shortage of experienced mariners”

M/V Yakima at dock - SJ Update file photo

This sto­ry comes from Wash­ing­ton State Fer­ries and it may help shed some light on all the fer­ry sail­ing can­cel­la­tions due to “Short­age of Coast Guard doc­u­ment­ed crew”…

We’re not the only marine trans­porta­tion sys­tem deal­ing with a lack of crewmem­bers. Fol­low­ing BC Fer­ries’ can­cel­la­tion of a cou­ple sail­ings last week due to a staffing short­fall, the company’s pres­i­dent and CEO said the ser­vice dis­rup­tions were caused in part by a “glob­al short­age of expe­ri­enced mariners.”

We know this sit­u­a­tion very well, as our dis­patch team has been work­ing in over­drive for more than a year now to staff our ves­sels. We hired a few oil­ers a cou­ple months ago and con­tin­ue to recruit deck­hands. How­ev­er, we’ve been hav­ing trou­ble find­ing qual­i­fied mariners – evi­dence that there is a short­age at least in our region, and pos­si­bly the world.

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