The myth that shore jobs always pay less than sailing

Every officer has heard it and most believe it: come ashore and you halve your income. It is true often enough to be a reasonable warning and false often enough to be a bad basis for a decision. The problem is that almost nobody compares the two numbers correctly.

Why the two figures are not comparable

A contract rate is a monthly figure paid for the months you sail. A shore salary is an annual figure paid for twelve months. Putting them side by side is the first error, and it usually flatters the sea number by a wide margin.

Work out your real annual sea income: contract rate multiplied by the months you actually sail in a year. An officer on a seven on five off rotation earns seven months of pay, not twelve. Now you have two annual figures that mean the same thing.

The honest finding when you do it properly

For most officers the first shore role pays less than the last contract, and often materially less. That is the part of the warning that is true, and you should plan for it rather than hope it does not apply to you. A senior officer coming ashore into an entry level commercial role in India is taking a real cut.

What the warning leaves out is the shape of the curve. Sea pay is close to flat inside a rank. You earn what a Chief Officer earns, year after year, until you get your Master's ticket and step up once. Shore pay starts lower and climbs, because each year of shore experience and each move is worth something to the next employer. The two lines cross, and where they cross depends on the role you chose.

The question is not whether the first year pays less. It almost certainly does. The question is what year five looks like, and whether you will still be fit and willing to sail then.

The four things officers forget to count

1. 1.The unpaid months. Five months at home on a seven on five off rotation is five months of zero, and it is already in your lifestyle.
2. 2.The tax position, which is favourable at sea under the right residency conditions and which you lose the moment you settle ashore. Count the net, not the gross, on both sides.
3. 3.Employer contributions ashore. A provident fund or pension, family medical cover and paid leave are real money that never appear in a contract rate.
4. 4.The career you can still have at fifty five. Sailing is physically finite. Most officers come ashore eventually, and the ones who do it at thirty five arrive with twenty years of shore seniority ahead of them while the ones who do it at fifty arrive as beginners.

Where the gap is smallest

Some shore roles pay close to sea money quickly, because they are priced on the same scarcity your CoC is priced on. Others never catch up. This is the real decision, and it sits in the role rather than in the country.

• •Roles that need your certificate: surveying, superintendence, marine warranty, pilotage and vetting. The CoC is the scarce input and the pay reflects it.
• •Roles in energy and offshore, where the project budgets are larger than shipping management budgets.
• •Commercial roles with a variable component, where chartering and broking pay a base that looks modest and a bonus that does not.
• •Roles in high cost countries, where the gross looks excellent until you price the rent.

How to run the comparison on your own numbers

1. 1.Multiply your contract rate by the months you sail in a typical year. That is your sea income.
2. 2.Subtract what sailing costs you personally: flights, courses, medicals, revalidations, anything the company does not pay.
3. 3.Take the shore offer and add the employer contributions and the value of the medical cover.
4. 4.Apply the tax you would actually pay in each case, in the place you would actually live.
5. 5.Compare the two net figures, then project both forward five years with a realistic promotion in each.

Do that and you will have a defensible answer for your own situation, which is more than the people repeating the myth in the mess room have.