Logged or Lost? Sea Time, AIS Tracking & Yacht Crew Careers | Jack Haworth | The Crew Car

Recording sea time should be one of the simplest parts of a maritime career. Instead, crew are still relying on paper records, spreadsheets and memories to prove where they have worked and whether they have the sea time required for their next qualification.

In this episode of The Crew Car, Captain James Battey, Founder of the Yacht Workers Council, sits down with Jack Haworth, Co-Founder of Digital Sea Service, to look at how technology could finally bring sea-service records into the modern maritime industry.

Jack explains how Digital Sea Service grew from his own experience at Warsash, where people discovered that mistakes in calculating their sea time could prevent them from progressing with their qualifications.

James and Jack discuss using AIS data to automatically record vessel activity, digital signatures and stamps, generating testimonials from existing records, and creating a career history that stays with crew as they move between vessels.

They also tackle the more uncomfortable side of digitisation. Better records mean greater transparency, and greater transparency can expose sea-time claims that simply do not add up. If professional qualifications require genuine experience at sea, should the industry be doing more to ensure that experience can actually be verified?

The conversation also looks at the wider problem of career progression in yachting, where crew are often expected to navigate certification, sea service, testimonials and training without the professional infrastructure that exists in other maritime sectors.

Digital tools will not solve every problem facing yacht crew, but making it easier to accurately record and prove a maritime career is a very good place to start.

🌐 Jack Haworth | Co-Founder, Digital Sea Service
 https://www.digitalseaservice.com/

🌐 Yacht Workers Council
 https://yachtworkerscouncil.com/

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