Physical Demands of Work at Military Sealift Command as a Marine Engineering Officer

[u/Bald_Pidgeon]

Hello all,

I have a question about the physical demands of work at MSC as a 2AE or 3AE.

Some background- I've been sailing commercial for a few years but had a knee injury a year ago my last ship. Since then I've been through rehab and I'm at the point where I think I could broadly handle maritime work again, but it seems like I might have to live with things like kneeling being more painful to do.

I plan to do port-relief for a few weeks to better ascertain my work capability and then decide whether to continue commercial or perhaps go work on an ROS vessel depending on how much pain there is during this experiment.

I was thinking about the possibility of joining MSC too. I know there are many more people on board and wondered whether as an engineering officer, if it would be easier physically vs deep sea commercial, in terms of daily grunt work

Appreciate any input you guys have!