Sarah Long, Deck Cadet – Scotland

As a Deck Cadet, I’m in training to become an Officer of the Watch. My end goal is to work on research vessels, as my background is in Environmental Science. I’m 18 months into the course, which has included two sea placements. I learn about the maintenance and vessel operations required on board a ship, to understand the broad workings of the various departments, and am transitioning to being on watches in the bridge full-time.

I live for variety. I get frustrated if I’m in the same place each day, doing the same thing. So I love that on a ship, even if my duties are the same each day, at least I’ve got a different view!

I’ve been pretty lucky and had overwhelmingly positive experiences of being a female seafarer, especially while working on the jack-up vessel. On the cruise ship, I worked with a variety of nationalities which can mean a variety of attitudes towards women at sea – in some cultures, women aren’t expected to be doing physical work, so I was sometimes told to relax and not get my hands dirty while trying to learn maintenance jobs. You can’t control the situations you’re faced with, but you can control your reaction to them. I decided that the best response was to persevere and show them that my gender doesn’t prevent me from being a competent seafarer.

While I admire the industry’s push to employ a greater proportion of female officers across all disciplines, the frankly outdated duration for maternity leave is a barrier to those who wish to pursue a career and have a family. Collective support for an updated maternity leave would help to increase the intake and job satisfaction for female seafarers.

My advice to other female seafarers is to reach out to other women to learn about their experiences and gain advice. I reached out to friends-of-friends who work in seafaring before applying for cadetships, and their advice made me resilient and armed with the knowledge of challenges I could face.

Sarah Long, Deck Cadet – Scotland