A marine surveyor's real week, from someone doing it

Surveying is the shore job officers ask about most and understand least. The picture people carry is of climbing a gangway with a torch and a clipboard. That part exists and it is perhaps a quarter of the work. Here is what the rest of it looks like.

The shape of a week

There is no standard week, and that is the first thing to understand. Work arrives when ships arrive and when something goes wrong, neither of which respects a calendar. A realistic week has two or three attendances, two or three reports in various states, and a steady background of quotes, invoices and correspondence.

The ratio surprises every officer who makes this move. You are not paid for attending. You are paid for the document that comes out of the attendance, and that document is read by people who may litigate over it.

What an attendance is actually like

You arrive at a port, often early, often without knowing how long the job will take. You find the agent, the gate, the gangway and the right officer, in that order. On board you are a guest with authority but no command, asking a busy crew for time they do not have. You look, you measure, you photograph everything, and you ask the questions whose answers you will need in writing three weeks later when the memory has gone.

Having been the officer on the other side of that conversation is the single biggest advantage a former seafarer has. You know what the crew is dealing with, you know when an explanation does not hold, and you know how to get cooperation without creating a problem.

The report is the job

A survey report has to be accurate, complete, defensible and readable by someone with no technical background, because an underwriter or a lawyer will rely on it. It records what you observed and it separates observation from opinion with discipline. The writing is the skill that decides who succeeds in this profession, and it is the one nobody screens for.

Nobody ever reads your report because they are happy. Write every line as though it will be read by someone trying to find the hole in it.

The parts nobody mentions

• •The work is lumpy. Three attendances in two days and then a quiet fortnight. If you are self employed, the quiet fortnight is unpaid and you still have to answer the phone.
• •You are on call in practice, because casualties do not happen in office hours.
• •Driving. A great deal of driving, to ports and anchorages and repair yards that are nowhere near a city.
• •Clients who want the answer before the evidence supports it, and the professional spine required to say no.
• •Chasing invoices, which is a real and recurring part of independent practice.

How the work arrives

Surveying runs on reputation and recommendation. The first year is largely spent proving that you turn up, write clearly and meet deadlines. After that the work tends to find you, and the problem reverses: the difficulty becomes saying no rather than finding the next job.

Most people start as a subcontractor to an established practice or as an employee of a surveying firm or P and I correspondent, then build their own client base. Going independent on day one is possible and much harder, because the certification and the credibility both take time.

Who the job suits

If you came ashore because you wanted the ships to stop being your life but not stop being your subject, this is the job that does that.