Thousands of sailors will see a change in the time they spend at sea over their career — and the impact, for many, will be felt immediately.
The changes announced in August immediately affect 28 ratings, 13 of which will see a rise in sea time. The sea-shore tour overhaul, the first in four years, tips the enlisted force towards more time at sea over a sailors' career.
Officials are concerned that their move ups the numbers of ratings considered “sea-intensive” from 14 in 2008 to 25 today. Sea-intensive ratings are those where a sailor would spend 18 years or more assigned to sea duty over a 30-year career. In simplest terms, these ratings have many more sea billets than shore spots.
“That’s a little bit of an alarming trend and what that’s saying is that the shore duty billet base for those ratings is insufficient to support the number of sea duty billets,” said Craig Schauppner, who has managed sea/shore flow for the chief of naval personnel since it was created in 2008. “So we know that those ratings are going to have manning challenges so an increase in the number of those ratings is a concern.”
The service is also weighing some larger changes proposed by CNA's Center for Naval Analyses, a research agency that assesses personnel management for the Navy. Among the proposals to fill more billets across the force:
