Current Day Rates

[Boats&Outboards]

Originally Posted by SDGANDER

So if a vessel operates 24/7 how would you suggest that you get around the need to live on board?

I won't go into my day rates but my current 'employer' covers my food/travel/laundry/etc in addition to my day rate but I live aboard and as skipper am obviously available 24/7.

I am freelance so if 'you' aren't paying my expenses then I m not going to work for you as I can't move every time I change employers - it just isn't possible financially or practically.

SDG

That's my point on supply = demand. They need you there ready at all time so of course have to cover board, travel etc.

The other posts don't relate to 24/7 availability or live aboard, more shift work such as 10 hours. In that instance I don't see why any employer should fit the bill unless they choose to.

Anyway like I said not my area so I'm gonna watch from here on in. Only thing I'd say is don't get too personal in terms of your own rates. Unless you want to

Peter ~ Boatsandoutboards4sale ~ askboatsandoutboards4sale@sky.com ~ 07930 421007

[Poly]

Originally Posted by steadyeddie

in this day and age a lot ofcompanies are working time for time , thus £120 a day and no leave pay equates to £60 a day,which is less than the minimum wage

What a fantastic juggling of arithmetic. There is no job in the "normal world" where you would get paid leave equal to the number of hours/days you actually worked (legal minimum is now approx 1 day off for every 8.3 days worked), so you can't twist it like that - otherwise the factory worker / security guard is also not earning minimum wage (for the weekends or shift patterns he works).

Your working patterns are not that different from many land based jobs where 12 hour shifts and blocks of work on and off are the norm. The rates of pay sound like the same general level too. Do YM's count as "offshore / at sea" though and avoid paying income tax etc?

Originally Posted by s.tree

Should people with specialist qualifications not be entitled to a little more than the minimum wage?

Rates of pay in all lines of work are essentially determined by market forces. If there are lots of people available with the required quals and experience and the job is something people enjoy doing then the rate falls. If it is an unpleasant job, or the entry requirements are particularly challenging then fewer people are interested and so rates will go up. Of course the minimum wage artificially skews the market at the bottom because it prevents excess supply from reducing the rate.

Of course if you think the rate is too low for your qualifications then you can always revert to doing a completely unskilled job on national minimum wage. At the end of the day if you are working in an average minimum wage job you will probably take home about £11-12.5k a year, and work 1600 - 1860 hours a year. If you are working 12 hr shifts with equal on-off patterns you would be doing 2190 hours a year, but earning £22-27k a year based on the figures being banded about here.

Originally Posted by Doug Stormforce

Everyone has to pay for basic living expenses such as board and lodgings. If you choose to work away from your home area then your living expenses go up. Chewy may be lucky but as an employer we don't pay staff from further away any more than locals to do the same job. Why would we?

Doug, if I wanted you to come up to Scotland, or Bogmonster wanted you to go to the Falklands and do a series of courses to get through my APB, including First Aid, Sea Survival, Day Skipper etc. So say 3 weeks solid work (ignoring any RYA complications about being away from your training centre) would you do it? Presumably, unless you are snowed under in Southampton, the answer is yes - but its going to cost me more. Even, if I provide all your travel and accommodation, food etc then it will probably still cost me more just for your inconvenience. That I think is the point that is being made. Headline rates sound good, but if you need travel to get to the base and then cover your own costs when there on top of being away from friends and family etc - then perhaps the "big" number is not so big when you look at it. Obviously if you can get the same figure in a stable location where you can justify basing your family etc then it may be more attractive - but I'd guess most newly qualified YM's have to go where the work is.

[Boats&Outboards]

Doug, if I wanted you to come up to Scotland, or Bogmonster wanted you to go to the Falklands and do a series of courses to get through my APB, including First Aid, Sea Survival, Day Skipper etc. So say 3 weeks solid work (ignoring any RYA complications about being away from your training centre) would you do it? Presumably, unless you are snowed under in Southampton, the answer is yes - but its going to cost me more. Even, if I provide all your travel and accommodation, food etc then it will probably still cost me more just for your inconvenience. That I think is the point that is being made. Headline rates sound good, but if you need travel to get to the base and then cover your own costs when there on top of being away from friends and family etc - then perhaps the "big" number is not so big when you look at it. Obviously if you can get the same figure in a stable location where you can justify basing your family etc then it may be more attractive - but I'd guess most newly qualified YM's have to go where the work is.[/QUOTE]

If I may, that's my point just there. Your asking him to come to you, specifically requesting him for the work. So yes you should pay his board and lodgings.

The difference here is the worker wants/has to go where the work is. If that means he has extra costs that's something he needs to consider in deciding to take the job or not.

Again SUPPLY = DEMAND

[Doug Stormforce]

Originally Posted by tim griffin

How much do you pay Doug
I know you charge out your Trainer/ Moderators @ £185 .
Tim

Tim, as you well know most of our staff are full time employed. Their contract details are private to them and I would not share them with you if you asked me face to face, far less on a public web forum. Likewsie I don't think it would be fair to shout out publicly what our freelance staff get paid either, some of them are members of this forum, many of them have taught other members on this forum and many of the have friends and acquaintances on this forum

A Trainer/moderator rate is obviously a trade rate to centres. I will confirm that you are wrong and £185 is not our trade rate (and never has been) but again i will not share what my trade customers pay on a web forum. I will also reframe from shouting out what I think you get paid by your neighbours on the Island.

Originally Posted by Polwart

Doug, if I wanted you to come up to Scotland, or Bogmonster wanted you to go to the Falklands and do a series of courses to get through my APB, including First Aid, Sea Survival, Day Skipper etc. So say 3 weeks solid work (ignoring any RYA complications about being away from your training centre) would you do it? Presumably, unless you are snowed under in Southampton, the answer is yes - but its going to cost me more. Even, if I provide all your travel and accommodation, food etc then it will probably still cost me more just for your inconvenience. That I think is the point that is being made. Headline rates sound good, but if you need travel to get to the base and then cover your own costs when there on top of being away from friends and family etc - then perhaps the "big" number is not so big when you look at it. Obviously if you can get the same figure in a stable location where you can justify basing your family etc then it may be more attractive - but I'd guess most newly qualified YM's have to go where the work is.

If you ask our company to send a man up to Scotland then yes we would charge you a premium to cover the expenses (and I would probally come and see you myself). However the OP is looking to join the work force, he is not a company offering a product. I am well aware that some companies pay travel, they tend to be the ones who don't have a suitable workforce in their area.

Stormforce has been running for nearly a decade now, apart from our full time staff we have a pool of about 30 freelancers that we use with reasonable regularity. In all the time we have been trading we have never paid for one of them's travel expenses to get to us. Some live on the Isle of Wight and accept that they have to pay to get to work, some live an hour or two away and drive, some live locally. Their pay however does not reflect their commute to us. They have to decide if the rate we pay them justifies the cost of getting to us.

However we often pay travel expenses to our staff or book them taxis and flight when we send them away somewhere else. There is of course a massive difference here. Firstly we factor the cost of travel into the away from base jobs and secondly it would be unreasonable to ask them to fund their own travel, hotels etc in this instance


The big point however that everyone is missing is that it does not matter how you dress it up its just a number. I could pay you £X+Y for a job or I could pay you X and cover some overheads for you (which happened to come to Y). Ignoring the tax benefit of one system over the other all that matters is that you are happy with a particular rate of pay. If your not you don't take the job, if you are then get on with it.

I don't believe there are set rates of pay across the industry, in fact there are some huge differences between employers, both in what they pay in salary/invoice and what they provided as part of their package. Likewise a Yachtmaster can take on a huge range of work paying from £60/day to several hundred a day depending on what, where, when, who, and so on. Not all Yachtmasters however are suitable for every job that requires one.

PS: Polwart I will PM you a quote over for the three weeks of training in Scotland and for the trip down to the Falklands.

[wavelength]

I will PM you a quote...............for the trip down to the Falklands.
Yesterday 12:04

done that, been there, 8k miles to run a few courses!
I often work as a commercial skipper on windfarms, and other facilities, these days (in fact this is being sent from the boat which explains the time and oo-er its b.... dark out here).
Love it...butI wouldn't consider discussing my remuneration, and any associated benefits that might or might not go along with it , on a public forum and I note the o.p. has not actually said (unless I missed it as I got bored with the thread very early) what the rate he says he wont work below actually is. Having a yachtmaster cert and having worked keeping scoobies happy in warmer climes in daylight does not equate to experience in the North Sea with the weather, commercial pressures and safety considerations that go with the job. If you can get a skippers job its likely to be a steep learning curve; looking to crew in the chosen industry first, to gain experience may be below newly qualified dignity but would give a clue as to what one might be be up against one day before being faced with a big nasty sea, a screaming tide up the stern and with techies still up a turbine ,but that was last week.....this week it is barnacles! you wouldnt believe the amount of oil that comes out of a clump of barnacles when you put a few tonnes of thrust on'em. Can slide up and down and pole dance on that for ages!

[tim griffin]

Originally Posted by Doug Stormforce

Tim
A Trainer/moderator rate is obviously a trade rate to centres. I will confirm that you are wrong and £185 is not our trade rate (and never has been) but again i will not share what my trade customers pay on a web forum. I will also reframe from shouting out what I think you get paid by your neighbours on the Island.

Doug Neighbours pay me £125 no big deal if you let me know yours i can contact you , you can pm or email if you want to keep it quiet.
Chees
Tim

[Trell]

If I hire a skipper for a job, through an advert as SDG will confirm, I pay a day rate, pay for the accommodation and a day rate for food, also mileage to get to the job. If a skipper contacts me and ask's if there is any work available, I will tell him where the work is, and would expect him to make his own way there, but I still cover Accommodation and subsistence. On some days you might work 3 hours on others 10 hours, same pay. Never had any complaints, (had some time wasters though)

[Poly]

Originally Posted by Doug Stormforce

If you ask our company to send a man up to Scotland then yes we would charge you a premium to cover the expenses (and I would probally come and see you myself). However the OP is looking to join the work force, he is not a company offering a product. I am well aware that some companies pay travel, they tend to be the ones who don't have a suitable workforce in their area.

but presumably the OP is looking to become a "self employed freelancer" (since he's talking day rates) - so its not different at all. The point someone else was making was don't forget about your overheads - what might seem like a good rate can quickly be diluted if you are paying for it all.

The big point however that everyone is missing is that it does not matter how you dress it up its just a number. I could pay you £X+Y for a job or I could pay you X and cover some overheads for you (which happened to come to Y). Ignoring the tax benefit of one system over the other all that matters is that you are happy with a particular rate of pay. If your not you don't take the job, if you are then get on with it.

Doug - I think we are actually in agreement. Of course if Y is a big number and I only pay you X then X-Y might not be so exciting which was the original point.

PS: Polwart I will PM you a quote over for the three weeks of training in Scotland and for the trip down to the Falklands.

thanks but it was purely hypothetical. Although I wonder if Steven would mind if we just turned up and used his boat for 3 weeks. That sounds like a fun holiday!

[williamhorace336]

[QUOTE=Polwart;428051]What a fantastic juggling of arithmetic. There is no job in the "normal world" where you would get paid leave equal to the number of hours/days you actually worked (legal minimum is now approx 1 day off for every 8.3 days worked),QUOTE]

Not true, I do, as does everyone in the armed forces

[Poly]

Originally Posted by williamhorace336

Not true, I do, as does everyone in the armed forces

What makes you think there is anything normal about the "armed forces"! However, when not on military operations you get 38 days paid leave a year: Time off - British Army Website

[williamhorace336]

Originally Posted by Polwart

What makes you think there is anything normal about the "armed forces"! However, when not on military operations you get 38 days paid leave a year: Time off - British Army Website

What makes you think it's abnormal?

Normal 8-5 for me, same as many other jobs!

[Poly]

Originally Posted by williamhorace336

What makes you think it's abnormal?

Normal 8-5 for me, same as many other jobs!

Well from a very simple point of view it is excluded from employment right legislation governing holidays.

[Rogue Wave]

Dovaston Crew, Professional Yacht Crew Recruitment, Professional Yacht Crew Placement

[SDGANDER]

Originally Posted by Trell

If I hire a skipper for a job, through an advert as SDG will confirm, I pay a day rate, pay for the accommodation and a day rate for food, also mileage to get to the job. If a skipper contacts me and ask's if there is any work available, I will tell him where the work is, and would expect him to make his own way there, but I still cover Accommodation and subsistence. On some days you might work 3 hours on others 10 hours, same pay. Never had any complaints, (had some time wasters though)

Indeed Trell is one of the good guys to work for and more than adequately covers expenses. Likewise my current company are generous (although not yet persuaded them to pay for tickets to and from the USA!) so it then becomes give and take where I ll not always book every hour or part hour worked or claim every little expense or be available when not actually working if needed.

SDG

[hobbit555]

There is always another skipper who is willing to undercut my price, are they insured for professional indemnity, to drive your pride and joy or your million pound Wfsv? I set my price, my terms etc and if the employer doesn't want to pay then they don't get my services. It is nice there are a few companies who will sort out everything for you to work on one of their vessels ie hire cars, hotels etc. I don't take the piss but I do expect a certain standard of accommodation and when I was freelancing I was never short of work

[tomoffshore]

Cox'ns working in the Indian Ocean on Maritime Security tasks are on between £250 & £300 per day.

[steadyeddie]

thats the norm tom, however a few people on here will chuckle at your figures, some seem to think £75-85 is the going rate for sitting 12hrs in a rib !!