The tickets that get you through the passerelle — fire, sea survival, first aid and personal safety — taught to a standard a flag state will actually accept.
Learn where the Mediterranean's crew actually get hired — the school, the agency and the dock are one walk.
Antibes is where the Mediterranean's crew actually get hired — the schools, the agencies and the crew houses sit inside the same square kilometre, so the training and the dock are the same walk.
Living sceneMeccaVerified schoolsGold credentialLearn in the refit hub where boats sit alongside for months, so training, winter work and an address overlap.
Palma runs the refit yards, so boats sit alongside for months and the crew who work them stay ashore — the one hub where training, winter work and an address overlap.
Living sceneVerified schoolsGold credentialLearn residentially — bed, food and fire ground through one door — on the water the RYA built its schemes around.
Cowes teaches crew residentially — the bed, the food and the fire ground come through the same door — on the water the RYA built its schemes around.
Living sceneVerified schoolsGold credentialHeritageLearn with USCG and MCA tickets under one roof, if you don't yet know which side of the Atlantic you'll work.
The American door in: USCG and MCA tickets under one roof, which is the whole question if you don't yet know which side of the Atlantic your working life happens on.
Living sceneVerified schoolsGold credentialLearn at an academy that owns its own fire ground, survival pool and lifeboat centre.
The academy owns its fire ground, its survival pool and its lifeboat centre instead of hiring them by the day — and anyone who has done safety training in a borrowed pool knows what that changes.
Verified schoolsGold credentialStart from the southern-hemisphere door, knowing what your tickets are worth before you buy a flight.
Almost every record of this industry is written from Antibes and Fort Lauderdale. Sydney is the southern-hemisphere door, and someone starting here deserves to know what their tickets are worth before they buy a flight.
Verified schoolsGold credentialWhat you can realistically reach: STCW Basic Safety Training is the legal minimum to work aboard, not a qualification to run anything. It gets you to an interview; it does not get you a job, and no school can honestly promise one. What comes after is sea time and a departmental ticket — an honest school says so before you pay.
This Atlas exists because there is a real difference between a school that teaches you and a good-looking website — and too much of the internet is the second kind. Here is what a place has to clear before it goes on here, and what we'll tell you straight when it doesn't.
If a place dodges these, that's your answer. It costs you nothing to ask, and it tells you everything.
This is the short version. The full method is here — the six questions, in order, for any craft anywhere.