United States Merchant Marine
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In 2018, more than 90% of the world’s goods are carried by ships, but few people think about that when they are shopping for everyday goods like groceries, clothing, appliances and cars, as well as gas and heating oil. At any one time right now, there are more than 20 million shipping containers crossing the oceans and pulling into ports, such as Houston, Newark, Norfolk, Long Beach, Tampa, and New Orleans. There are all kinds of ships in the US Merchant Marine fleet. Most are purpose-built for a specific job. Wes Heerssen, we learned, works mostly aboard Ro-Ros. These are enormous ships that look like giant boxes, Wes Heerssen’s ship, MV Honor, is a 625 foot-long Ro-Ro. designed to fit hundreds of cars in their cargo holds. The world’s largest Ro-Ro is the MV Celine, which was launched last year from a shipyard in South Korea for a shipping company based in Luxembourg. MV Celine is 768 feet long by 125 feet wide and will be put into service between Ireland, England, Belgium and the Netherlands. Ro-Ros are not the biggest ships plying the seas in the 21st century; some passenger cruise ships and tankers are even bigger. The fleet of vessels serving in the merchant marine is as varied as the cargoes they carry and the people who operate them. There are cargo ships (bulk cargo, container, refrigerated cargo, multi-purpose), tankers (oil, chemical, gas), passenger vessels (ferries, cruise ships, water taxis, and combination passenger-cargo ships). These are just a few examples. A maritime career can be an exciting and well-paid profession. Depending on what type of ship you work on, you may sail the world’s oceans, or you may work in local waters and be able to go home to your family each night. The International Maritime Organization recently announced that the industry is facing a shortage of trained and licensed maritime professionals, and the maritime academies confirm this, reporting high employment rates for their students as soon as they graduate. To become a ship’s officer, engineer, or captain, you can do what Wes did and “come up through the hawsepipe,” or you can attend a maritime academy and start out working as a licensed officer or engineer after you graduate. There are seven publicly funded maritime academies in the United States. The US Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point in Long Island, The 1,302-foot-long Emma Maersk is a 170,794 gross New York, is a federal service academy; the others are state ton container ship operated by a crew of 13. schools: California Maritime Academy, Maine Maritime Academy, Massachusetts Maritime Academy, Great Lakes Maritime Academy, Texas A & M Maritime Academy, and the State University of New York (SUNY) Maritime College. If you are interested in learning more about them, visit the schools’ websites: www.usmma.edu (Kings Point); www.csum. edu (California); www.mainemaritime.edu (Maine); www.maritime.edu (Massachusetts); www.nmc.edu/maritime/ (Great Lakes); www.tamug.edu/corps/ (Texas); and www.sunymaritime.edu (New York).
courtesy maersk line
photo by marco schoone
he United States Merchant Marine is a civilian maritime service made up of professional mariners and the vessels they operate. Merchant ships carry cargoes (container ships and tankers, for example) and passengers (ferries, cruise ships, and excursion vessels) in both inland waters and across the oceans. Although merchant mariners are civilians—meaning, not in the armed services—they sometimes work in support of the military or aboard ships owned by the federal government. In wartime, merchant mariners have been called in to service to transport troops and military supplies to war zones in other parts of the world.
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