A career at sea is paying off for Sam who had an impressive amount of savings, qualifications and experience under his belt before his 21st birthday.
Sam is the Second Engineer on Sealord’s deep sea vessel Thomas Harrison – a position he was promoted into after qualifying for the role only seven months after joining the company as a trainee engineer.
While he works Sam continues to train, progressing through the Marine Engineer Class certification system. And because working for Sealord means someone like Sam has few expenses while away at sea, he can save his salary.
“The pay’s really great, I’m saving money for a house, and one of the other things I really love about the job is the amount of time we get off,” Sam says.
“That’s where you can go travel, or spend time at home. I’m really big on water sports and then in the winter I do a lot of four-wheel driving and snowboarding so it works out well for me that I've got all this free time to do the things that I love as well.”
Life onboard suits the young engineer. He’s happy being busy and there is always something needing maintaining or fixing on a 180 tonne, 42.5m trawler that brings hoki, orange roughy and dory back to shore.
“The main part of my work is in the engine room or factory where I could be fixing a conveyor belt, a water pump, or servicing and maintaining the engine and auxiliary engines. But there’s day-to-day work on cabins or other parts of the boat too, so I could be fitting a TV in someone’s room or doing work on the hot water system.”
The time flies, and in between rostered shifts Sam makes the most of the excellent meals, the opportunity to catch up on movies in his room and mull on some of the other opportunities available to him.
“There are so many potential opportunities to travel, with one of the factory boats going to Australia sometimes and another boat based out of Mauritius.
“When I was younger I thought my dream job would be a mechanic but there's a lot more money to be made being an engineer at sea and there's a lot more variety too.”
