Fleet and manning
The vessel register, rank structure, manning requirements, and planning crew changes.
Fleet and manning connects the crew register to the vessels an operator runs — which ranks each vessel needs, who currently fills them, and how upcoming crew changes are planned.
The vessel register
Each vessel in the fleet has its own record, holding:
- Name and IMO number.
- Vessel type and flag.
- A status —
active,inactive, orsold. - A default contract length, used to pre-fill planned assignments.
- Free-text notes.
Vessels are never deleted once a crew assignment has referenced them.
A vessel that has left the fleet is marked sold rather than removed, so
historical assignment data tied to it stays intact.
Rank structure
SeaSquad CMS maintains a controlled catalog of ranks, organized by department — deck, engine, and catering — with a seniority order within each department. Each rank has a stable code and a display name (for example, Chief Officer), and the catalog also tracks known naming variants so that ranks recorded slightly differently (for instance, during a bulk import) can still be matched to the right catalog entry.
Ranks are retired rather than deleted when no longer in use, so that older manning requirements and assignment history continue to resolve correctly.
Manning requirements
Each vessel defines its own manning requirement: how many of each rank it needs to sail with. This is expressed as a set of rank-and-headcount pairs against the vessel — for example, a defined number of Able Seamen, one Chief Officer, and so on. This requirement is what manning summaries (such as "19 of 24 filled") are measured against, and it is what upcoming vacancies are identified from.
Crew assignments
An assignment links one seafarer to one vessel for one engagement, and carries both the planned and the actual side of that engagement in a single record:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
planned | A future assignment has been scheduled but the seafarer has not yet joined. |
onboard | The seafarer is currently serving on the vessel. |
completed | The engagement finished and the seafarer signed off. |
cancelled | The planned assignment did not go ahead. |
Each assignment records the rank being filled, the planned and actual sign-on date, the contract length, the planned due date for sign-off, and — once it happens — the actual sign-off date and its type (normal completion, medical, removal, or early relief).
A seafarer can hold at most one onboard assignment at a time. This is
enforced by the system, not left to office discipline, so the roster
cannot show the same person on two vessels at once.
Planning crew changes
Because assignments carry both planned and actual state, the same data answers several planning questions at once:
- Current roster — who is
onboarda given vessel right now. - Upcoming reliefs — assignments approaching their due date, so replacement crew can be planned ahead of time.
- Vacancy view — comparing a vessel's manning requirement against its current onboard headcount by rank.
- Sea-service history — a seafarer's completed assignments over time.
A planned relief can reference the assignment it is intended to replace, so an incoming assignment and the outgoing one it relieves stay linked as a crew change is planned and then executed.