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One-to-One Maritime Mentorship

Sea to Shore

Your Path to Independent Shore Practice

A structured programme for maritime professionals building an independent practice ashore. Marine surveyor, port captain, auditor, consultant, BBS facilitator, underwriter. The path depends on your background. The commitment is the same.

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“You have spent years at sea. You know this industry from the inside. You have solved problems that would stop most people cold. And you are still asking permission to take a day off.”

You are essential to the operation. But to the company, you are a contract. When the restructuring comes, when the budget changes, when a cheaper option presents itself, the years you gave them do not protect you the way you think they do.

I am not saying this to frighten you. I am saying it because I lived it, and because the people I work with needed to hear it plainly before they were ready to do something about it.

The Programme

What Sea to Shore Is

Sea to Shore is a structured, one-to-one programme for maritime professionals who are ready to build an independent practice ashore.

No group sessions. No course portal. No recorded modules you will never get around to watching. You get Mykola’s time, his attention, and the benefit of having made this transition himself, across multiple shore roles and disciplines.

Shore Careers

Six Paths Built on Maritime Command

The maritime industry pays for depth of experience. Each of these roles is built directly on what you already know from the sea.

IIMS Pathway

Independent Marine Surveyor

Condition surveys, on-hire and off-hire, P&I instructions, cargo work, damage investigations. The most portable of all independent practices. Officers can be based anywhere with port access and build a genuine business from it. The Atlantic European corridor is underserved by qualified independents. IIMS membership is the credential that carries weight with P&I clubs and commercial clients.

Specialist Operations

Port Captain & Operations Advisor

Expert operational support for port authorities, terminal operators, and project cargo coordinators during complex operations. Strong day rates, specialist scope, and direct application of command experience. Getting started requires the right relationships. With targeted positioning and the right introductions, the pipeline builds quickly from a small number of key clients.

Safety Management

ISM & SQAS Auditor

Auditing Safety Management Systems and quality frameworks for shipowners, managers, and chemical industry operators. SQAS assessor certification is the relevant credential for tanker and chemical sector work. Demand is consistent and compliance-driven. A tanker or deck background gives an auditor credibility that a shore-based career rarely produces.

Strategic Advisory

Marine Advisor & Consultant

Working directly with shipowners, charterers, and operators on fleet strategy, charter party review, operational risk, expert witness work, and casualty investigation. The highest-margin independent work in the sector. It takes the longest to build. Officers who first establish themselves in survey or port work arrive with credibility that shortens the timeline significantly.

Safety Culture

BBS Facilitator

Behaviour Based Safety facilitation for shipping companies and terminals. Observation programmes, coaching, and safety culture change work. Demand from tanker, LNG, and offshore sectors is real and growing. Officers with genuine operational authority bring credibility to this work that shore-based facilitators cannot easily replicate. Specialist positioning with limited direct competition.

Insurance & Risk

Marine Underwriter

Supporting insurers, P&I clubs, and brokers on risk assessment, technical review, and claims investigation. A natural fit for officers with cargo, survey, or casualty experience. Some positions are employed, some freelance. The transition path for most officers runs through survey or consulting work first, building the technical credibility that underwriting clients require.

The Path Behind the Programme

Twenty Years of Maritime Command.
Distilled Into a System.

This is the career path Sea to Shore is built on. Every session draws from experience earned at each of these levels.

Apprenticeship
Junior Officer
Senior Officer
Staff Master
Captain
Marine Surveyor
& Port Captain
Safety Superintendent
+ BBS Facilitator
Entrepreneur
✦
The Total Command
Framework
Mentorship included
Apprenticeship
Junior Officer
Senior Officer
Staff Master
Captain
Marine Surveyor & Port Captain
Safety Superintendent + BBS Facilitator
Entrepreneur
✦
The Total Command Framework Mentorship included
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What We Cover

The Four Pillars

01

Positioning Your Expertise

What you know is not automatically what the market will pay for. We work out which part of your expertise has the highest value to the right clients, and how to communicate it so those clients recognise it immediately. Most maritime professionals undersell themselves badly at the start. This is the work that fixes that.

02

Building the Structure

How to structure engagements. What to put in agreements. How to price. What to avoid in the early stage that will cost you later. The structural decisions you make at the start are hard to undo once you have clients. We get them right from the beginning.

03

Getting Clients

The maritime industry runs on reputation and relationships. You probably have more of both than you realise. We work out who the right clients are for your specific expertise and role, where they are, and what the right approach looks like. Specific to maritime, to your background, and to what you are offering.

04

Building for the Long Term

A practice that requires you to personally deliver every hour of work is still a job. We look at how to build authority in your area, how to create value beyond time-for-money exchanges, and how to build something that compounds over time rather than just paying this month’s bills.

Eligibility

Who This Is For

  • Maritime professionals with sea time who are ready to build an independent practice ashore. The role you are building toward matters. The years behind you are the asset.
  • Deck, engineering, survey, safety, cargo, and technical backgrounds. Command experience and specialist experience both open different doors.
  • Officers moving into surveying, port operations, auditing, consulting, BBS facilitation, underwriting, or related independent shore roles
  • Officers preparing 12 to 18 months ahead, as well as those ready to move now. Starting earlier makes every stage faster and the first year more survivable.

Mykola works with a small number of people at a time. This is deliberate. The programme only works with the level of attention given to each person, and that attention has limits.

Mykola Aleksyeyev Mykola Aleksyeyev Marine Surveyor, Port Captain and Consultant Port of Leixoes, Porto 20+ years in the maritime industry. Marine surveyor, port captain and BBS facilitator. SQAS assessor certified. Read his full story
Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

That depends on your background, your location, and what you want your working life to look like. A 15-minute call covers this directly. Mykola will ask specific questions about your sea time, your specialist experience, and your situation, and give you a clear read on which paths are most realistic for you and which will take longer to reach.
Tanker experience is one of the most commercially valuable backgrounds in the independent maritime sector. It opens survey work for tanker operators and P&I clubs, SQAS auditing for chemical sector clients, port captain work at specialised terminals, BBS facilitation where tanker operators are the primary buyers, and consulting work for charterers and operators who need someone with direct tanker command experience. The SQAS assessor certification is particularly relevant here and worth pursuing early.
The programme is built around your chosen path. If you are targeting ISM or SQAS auditing, the four pillars still apply: positioning your experience so the right clients understand what you offer, structuring your engagements correctly from the start, getting the first clients, and building something that compounds over time. The specifics of how to do each of those things differ by role, and Mykola has direct experience in the auditing world to draw on.
It means you work directly with Mykola. No team, no assistants, no automated sequences. Every session is with him. The work is shaped around your specific background, your market, and what you are building. Nothing is generic.
A small number deliberately. The programme requires real attention and the attention has limits. When the current cohort is full, the next available slot goes on a waiting list. The 15-minute call is how we establish whether timing and fit are right before anything else.
You tell Mykola where you are. Your background, what you are thinking about building, and where the obstacles are. He will tell you honestly whether this programme makes sense for your situation. If it does not, he will say so. If it does, you will know what working together looks like before you commit to anything.
Yes. In fact, the depth of experience is the asset. The maritime industry is full of operators who need people who understand what happens at sea from the inside. The challenge is usually the expertise. It is knowing how to identify who will pay for it, at what level, and how to reach them. That is exactly what the programme addresses.
The call has no obligation attached to it. If the timing is wrong, that is a useful conclusion to reach quickly rather than slowly. Knowing is better than the alternative. You leave the call with a clearer picture of your situation regardless of what you decide next.
The First Step

A 15-Minute Call

No obligation. You tell me where you are. I tell you honestly whether this makes sense for you. If it does not, I will say so. If it does, we talk about how to proceed.

I do not chase people for this. Either it is the right time and the right fit, or it is not. That call will tell us both which it is.

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