Professional Competencies Required:
- At-sea experience:
- Navigation officer for at least 2 years within the last 4 years, including passage planning preparations.
- Officer of the Watch on transoceanic vessels for at least 4 years (e.g., Transatlantic, Transpacific crossings).
- Practical use of weather routing software or services.
- Strong feedback on rough seas navigation.
- Excellent verbal understanding and good writing skills in English.
- Experience within a vessels Weather Routing Center or Operations Monitoring Center.
- Officer experience on gas carriers, tankers, container carriers, bulk carriers, or passenger vessels.
- Polar navigation experience.
- Certified studies in meteorology and/or oceanography.
- IT skills, including:
- Practical use of sea-keeping software.
- Practical use of operational software to test and comment on new IT products and functionalities.
- Knowledge of any language other than English.
- Ability to listen and strictly adhere to captains' requirements while monitoring a fleet of vessels at sea.
- Autonomy in initiating direct contact with captains via satellite phone when necessary (e.g., for over-speeding vessels, route deviations, fuel monitoring).
- Self-control to maintain excellent relationships under the stress of severe sea conditions.
- Full and impartial reporting of any critical events or difficult verbal relationships with vessels.
- Ability to quickly analyze post-voyage data and argue with scientific facts for claim management.
- Curiosity to integrate additional data sources from the web for enhanced analysis.
- IT proficiency to use software effectively and suggest improvements or new functionalities.
- Commitment to providing the best advice to captains at sea at any time.
- Ability to write and provide feedback for continuous improvement.
- Collect all necessary data 72-24 hours before a vessel's departure (e.g., tracking, satellite communications, vessel characteristics, and operational constraints) to calculate optimal routes and speeds using weather routing software.
- Provide meteorological and oceanographical forecasts and observations data to vessels.
- Advise captains on passage planning, both before departure and during ocean crossings:
- Assist captains in connecting to relevant systems and setting up calculations.
- Input parameters according to captains' preferences when needed.
- Monitor vessel safety during storms and tropical depressions.
- Compare vessel routes in similar conditions.
- Address fuel consumption concerns and communicate with captains to optimize voyage budgets.
- Optimize vessel routes using weather routing software.
- Consider vessel observations to comment on metocean forecasts.
- Analyze forecasts and observation data to create post-voyage reports and support claim management when necessary.
- Contribute feedback on software and operational processes for continuous improvement.
- Perform occasional weekend shifts as part of a team rotation to assist ships.