Able Bodied Seaman Rob Bauer of Blue Hill poses on the back deck of the tug Kimberly Turecamo in New York Harbor. The tug was his home for three weeks.

Part 1 of 2: Introduction and Training
BLUE HILL — The recent popular news has been telling us about the wave of Boomers who are approaching retirement but still need and want to work. I count myself among this crowd.

After closing my seafood business of 15 years, Maine’s Best Seafood in Hancock, in December of 2006 due to a lack of scallops, mussels, crabs and other items, and anticipating an avalanche of paperwork that would soon be required by the state for all purchases from fishermen, I brought to a close my 40 years of involvement with the Maine/New England seafood industry as both a harvester and dealer, and part-time Statehouse shrill.

“He went like one that hath been stunned And is of sense forlorn A sadder and wiser man,   He rose the morrow morn.” — "The Rime of the ancient Mariner" By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In a state whose governor consistently talks about the benefits of an education, I was repeatedly told by those at the unemployment office to delete my master’s degree and, in some cases, my college degree from my resume. So, after a year of looking for jobs where experience is a disadvantage, (read “too old”), I decided to see if there was still a chance to restart my career and become an ancient merchant mariner.

After consulting with many in the Merchant Marine industry, I came to the conclusion that age isn’t feared in this industry, and in June of this year started school to train for my AB merchant mariner license. For those who don’t know, AB stands for able-bodied seaman.

It is like being a corporal in the Army. You are one step up on the long ladder to the pilot house. One needs to have a minimum amount of sea time to prove that you are in fact a mariner, and are qualified to be an AB. If you have no sea time and wish to start on the bottom of the ladder, you start as an OS, or an ordinary seaman. However, it isn’t that easy to even start as an OS. You must pass a Homeland Security background check, get a physical, pass a drug test and prove that you are a U.S. citizen.

Another important aspect of Merchant Marine life that is a deterrent to many is the fact that one must stay sober while on board any U.S. Merchant vessel.

I received my merchant mariner OS document in April of this year and quickly sent out inquiries to many companies. I received no replies. I decided then, that I would need my AB rating to prove that I was in fact a mariner who, despite my age, could still splice and throw a line.

There are three levels of ABs, and they are all based on how much sea time you did, when you did it and where you did it. My sea time occurred when I fished on my two draggers out of Point Judith, R.I., and covered a period from 1976 to 1991 and was mostly within 10 miles of shore. This qualified me for an AB special rating.

I filled out my sea time forms, sent them into Boston REC and was told two weeks later that I indeed did qualify to be an AB special. Now it was time to head off to school.

The Coast Guard holds exams for many licenses, but prefers that all mariners go to an approved maritime school and get their professional requirements accomplished in the private sector, thereby saving the U.S. government the cost and time involved in the administration of exams.

Maritime training has thus become a huge business. Northeast Maritime Institute in Fairhaven, Mass., where I went for two classes, is an example of this growing business.

Northeast recently entered into a joint venture arrangement with one of the biggest barge and tug companies on the Mississippi, American Commercial Lines or ACL. Northeast will be training over 2,000 ACL tug and barge workers as new standards are brought to the Inland River Systems that will require river workers to have the same professional capabilities as those who work on the oceans and coastal waters of the United States.

My first week of class was devoted to safety, first aid and fire and survival training, all subjects that are required for your STCW certificate. This certificate is an international standard that all mariners will soon need to posses, to show that they have minimum safety training.

The hit of the week was a day of training at the Connecticut Fire Academy, which is like a camp for anyone who wants to learn all there is to know about fighting fires. Mariner students must to be able to don a full protective suit and Air Pac, enter a building/engine room while crawling with two other firefighters and put out a fire in an enclosed room. It is hard and scary work, especially when your Air Pac runs out of air.

Besides fire and first aid, merchant mariners also need to know how to swim, something that was new to some of the students from the Inland River System. Students are also required to get into a life raft from the water and know how to right it should it get blown upside down.

With every practical hands-on learning exercise, there is also a follow-up written test that every- one must take. With one course down and two to go, I was now on my way to what I hoped was a new career on a tugboat somewhere on the East Coast.

For my second course, called “the 40-hour Able Bodied Seaman Course,” I had to go only as far as Freedom, Maine.

The DownEast Training Center, run by Shawn Ahearn, has been training merchant mariners for many years and offers courses at all levels of training often in conjunction with Maine Maritime Academy. For this course, there were three separate exams testing one’s knowledge of vessel construction, operation and navigation.

There was an exam for knots and line throwing as well as rules of the road. Many of the questions on the different exams are the same questions that would be on the exam for a 100-ton captain’s license, the only difference being that those who sit for a captain’s license must get at least a 90 percent on the test.

It is with this coursework, training and tests that an everyday fisherman or sailor starts to learn the language of the merchant marine. Marine terminology, as anyone who lives on the coast well knows, can be very regional in nature. In the Merchant Marine, everyone has to speak the same language and know the same terms. Therefore, what may be a fisherman’s bend on a fishing boat in Portland, is a sheepbend on a merchant vessel anywhere.

The AB course makes sure that all U.S. merchant mariners speak the same nautical language. This language happens to be very international in nature. A crewman on a container vessel from China must be able to communicate with the pilots and tugboats of New York Harbor. Though not perfect, this international nautical language has helped to keep our coastal waters free from major maritime disasters for quite some time.

For my final course, I headed back down to Northeast Maritime to take a week of training for the operation of a lifeboat. All ABs are now required to know how to operate a gravity operated lifeboat as well as a life raft. Northeast Maritime is one of the few training facilities that has a lifeboat set up on the shore. If you thought shipboard terminology was arcane, lifeboat terms date back to early England and are a language of their own.

Taking the course with me were a group of 12 or so employees from ACL as well as a few new career types like myself. I completed the course, passed the written test and had my lifeboatman’s certificate by 2 p.m. Friday. The Coast Guard REC in Boston had it, as well as my other class certificates, on Monday, and by the following Friday, I had my merchant mariner document with an AB special rating.

Next week: Rob’s job.