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Benjamin Nicholson
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Oct 4, 2026
Seafarers Wanted: MSC’ Nicholson Touts Upgraded Pay and Benefits plus ‘The Mission’
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2:27Greg TroutwineHOST
If you could, can you give a by-the-numbers look at MSC today? And again, I'm just looking for what the command looks like, the number of ships, SIGMARS, the ship operationally available, and most importantly, what percentage of the fleet can you actually put to sea and sustain on a relatively short notice?

Benjamin NicholsonGUEST
So 62 of our vessels are crewed by the Civil Service Mariners or SIVMARs of MSC that you hear so much about.

Benjamin NicholsonGUEST
SIVMARs, we have a little over 6,200 SIVMARs to crew those 62 GOGO vessels, GOGO government-owned, government-operated.
5 MINS LATER
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8:32Greg TroutwineHOST
You know, of the challenges, which one, I guess, from your point of view, most constrains your ability to support the fleet today? And what are you doing differently since taking command?
CAVASSHIPS Podcast [Jun 26, ’26] Ep: 248 Military Sealift Commander Rear Admiral Benjamin Nicholson
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37:23

Chris KavasHOST
But where are you first on hiring civilian marines? How's your force health at the moment?

Benjamin NicholsonGUEST
If you'll allow me to digress just a moment and tell you the history of how we got to where we were, which led us up to that point, because when you understand the totality of where we were and where we are now, you'll understand why it will take a bit to recover.

Benjamin NicholsonGUEST
And then in order to have that crewing concept, you need a particular number of billets that fulfill the afloat requirement and then the time for when people are ashore.

Benjamin NicholsonGUEST
And those numbers had been established quite some time ago, but unfortunately, the number that we were using for the number of billets was actually incorrect.
27 MINS LATER

Chris ServelloHOST
You know, you're obviously focused on getting MSC healthy, but how are you kind of taking real world combat lessons and implementing them into, you know, maybe what the next two MSC commanders are going to have to deal with? Or how are you fitting into the Golden Fleet? I mean, you know, there's a lot that you have on your plate, but what does the future MSC look like, given the lessons that you've learned here over the last three or four years?