adding some fuel to a fire

[c.captain]

I received this today:

Sean Hogue sent a message to the members of Dynamic Positioning Operators.

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Subject: Chief Officer / SDPO & Master Required

Chief Officer/SDPO’s with Sat Dive experience & Masters with experience on Norwegian Flagged vessels and Sat Dive experience that live in Australia or New Zealand. Joining will be in the next few weeks.

Please message me if you are interested.
Regards,
S.

So, if I read this correctly, our Norwegian friends are more than willing to hire Australian and New Zealander officers (including masters!) for their vessels operating "down under" but aren't willing to even talk to an American mariner to work on Norwegian vessels working in the Gulf of Mexico!

Hmmmm...I wonder why this is?

As long as the status quo continues, American professional mariners will remain disenfranchied and pounding the streets looking for employment while foreign mariners keep working away in our Gulf taking the jobs which are supposed to belong to Americans!

[Capt. Lee]

C-Captain,

I work for Norwegians in the Gulf of Mexico and I am american....What does that mean?

Also, New Zeleanders are called Kiwis.

[seadawg]

also read somewhere maersk lines is attempting to "cull" it's Danish and UK officers replacing them with "cheaper" labor in order to cut costs..may have priced themselves out of the container market..looks like what goes arround might come arround!!

[c.captain]

C-Captain,

I work for Norwegians in the Gulf of Mexico and I am american....What does that mean?

if you're on one of "their" vessels then you are one of a very small group indeed...

I know that there are a couple of American mariners working on the KINGFISHER and I think on a few of the CalDive vessels these days but the vast majority are still foreigners.

[Capt. Lee]

I know one of the guys on the Kingfisher. I met him in Adv. Stability at MITAGS. He stated to me that no one qualified was applying for the positions.

My case is different. The Company I work for is Norwegian and the vessel is Panamanian flagged. We are in the Gulf, but there are other vessels in their fleet that are outside the Gulf with americans working on them. At any given time there are over 100 americans onboard. More foriegn vessels are coming which in my opinion will mean more jobs for US workers. I am pretty sure that if we were to leave the Gulf that some positions would be replaced with local workers. I can say so far I like working for Norwegians. They really believe in training and are not afraid to invest some money into their people.