Making the transition, after many years at sea, to a career and more routine family life on land can be an immense upheaval. Coming ashore isn’t for everyone; some stay only a few months before heading quickly back to sea.

Shore-based Maritime has lots to offer. However, many have “completely false expectations”, especially on the monetary aspect and once they come to experience the hard reality they feel the sea is better. Adapting to a comparatively lower salary and an office environment can be tough. If you don’t do your homework, you can get disillusioned and simply go back to what you know.”

The first stage of switching is self-checking ‘what do you want?’ Sea or Shore. Once that is sorted, let’s see three ways amongst others to ace the shore career.

Test yourself before you commit

It’s always good to test the waters before you take a deep dive. Whenever you come ashore after sailing, use the time at land by trying out short-term positions either in your own company or elsewhere. A short contract onshore job can help seafarers decide whether to come ashore or be better off sailing. Experience at shore helps familiarize with the shore-based environment.

Staying ashore brings the opportunity to stay close to family; but others prefer the routine of being at sea for several months, then spending an extended period at home completely allocated to the family, In the end, people decide for themselves what is important.

Define your career path

After quitting sea, don’t just grab any job that comes your way. Frankly, it is better to be patient and wait for the right opportunity based on your self-assessment. Yes, there are opportunities to progress in a shore role, and some work their way up to the top if they have the technical competence and also the skill. But not everyone can be promoted. So, the seafarer has to find what is best for them and have an action plan.

Employers indeed value previous shore-based experience. This is where short work experience gives weightage over ones who do not have any shore experience.

A common and tough battle for ex-seafarers is learning how to move from the ‘command and control management style at sea to a team-working ethos ashore.

Seafarers that go ashore are typically the most ambitious and want to advance their careers. At sea, once you reach the higher rank the job is the same and at the shore, there is an abundance of opportunities to experiment yourself.

Enhance your soft skills

You should upgrade your soft skills and invest in yourself. Soft skills are people skills and are usually personality based. It is more to do with the type of person you are. Regardless of where you work, you need your co-workers and possibly your clients, to understand you. And you need to understand them. Likely, you can truthfully say that you possess many of the much-needed soft skills that demand being a good leader, a good team player, and a good communicator amongst many skills. But it’s well worth keeping in mind that working in maritime jobs on land is going to be very different from working in the seafarer jobs you’ve previously held. Life in an office and the way communications are carried out are going to be very different from life at sea. So consider polishing your soft skills to rise the ladder ashore.

At sea, you may have mastered your craft. Ashore, you have a plethora of new disciplines to discover, whether you opt to go into an operational, technical, or project management-focused role. The sky is not the limit for those who wish to take a plunge in this unchartered arena.

Hope the above pointers be helpful to prepare you for what will be a very big change in sea careers for you. There’s no doubt that working in traditional seafarer jobs is rewarding. But for whatever reason, if you’ve decided that you’re going to quit working at sea, arm yourself with all the necessary research and hone your skills to ace the show at the shore. Wishing you all the very best!

Marex Media