Crewing agencies · guide
Seafarer application forms: stop retyping CVs
Every shipowner has its own application form, and managers spend hours copying the same data from one form to another. I am a seaman by training and have filled in application forms myself, and I have worked with crewing for 20 years. Here is how to make it simple.
What an application form usually includes
- Personal details, contacts, next of kin.
- Rank, desired rank, date of availability.
- Sea service: vessels, type, flag, tonnage, engine, contract periods.
- Documents: passport, seaman's book, CoC and STCW certificates — with numbers and expiry dates.
- Medicals, visas, vaccinations.
- English level and test results.
How to do it right
- One seafarer database: data is entered once and checked.
- Each shipowner's template (Word or PDF) is filled from the database automatically.
- The software warns you if a document expires before the contract ends.
- Document scans are attached to the seafarer — no digging through email.
- You can see who changed what and when.
Where to start
Collect 3–5 of your shipowners' most frequent application formats and your current seafarer spreadsheet. With them I will show you what automatic filling looks like — the consultation is free. Every manual copy is a chance to get a date or a document number wrong, and shipowners notice such errors.
AI
AI in your crewing work
- Forms, CVs and scans go straight into the database; the manager just checks.
- Letters to shipowners, vacancies and replies to seafarers — drafts in a minute.
- Seafarers' passports and documents stay in a local model, never sent online.
- I train your managers — I work with Claude Code, ChatGPT, LM Studio and Ollama myself.
FAQ
Questions and answers
Will the shipowner's exact format be kept?
Yes: your Word or PDF template is used as is; the software only fills in the data.
What if a shipowner changes its form?
The template is replaced in minutes — the database stays the same.