In its four years of operation, Sea Services has set many precedents, given its unique role as the only commercial fishermen’s co-op providing scout and safety services to offshore wind developers.

Establishing the ‘Sea Services Certification’ for crewmen, however, is of particular significance because it represents the co-op’s focus on safety for commercial fishermen.

And this focus on safety is the reason Sea Services earned the Oceantic Network’s prestigious Ventus Award for Program of the Year in Health and Safety earlier this spring.

Vessels working with Sea Services must first pass a safety inspection that far exceeds U.S. Coast Guard requirements. This 130-point safety inspection is performed by a certified, third-party marine safety inspector and overseen by Sea Services personnel. Sea Services also partners with vessel owners to ensure that equipment and technology upgrades are made to meet stringent offshore wind industry standards.

Sea Services provides extensive maritime safety training to meet rigorous industry standards. This training includes personal survival techniques, fire prevention and firefighting, elementary first aid, with specialized modules in practical STCW-certified drills focusing on firefighting techniques and pool-based water survival training. Crewmen are also trained in advanced radar and AIS navigation, incident reporting, regulatory compliance aligned with BOEM and U.S. Coast Guard standards, and effective communication protocols. Additional training includes fisheries liaison roles, protected species observer responsibilities, geophysical and geotechnical scout surveying, and gear loss management

But before any of that process starts, Sea Services personnel – commercial fishermen with decades of experience at sea – approach only those boat owners and captains who they know from experience are concerned about safety.

“We’ve been fishing these waters basically all of our adults live and you get to know lots of guys and lots of boats in that time,” said Gary Yerman, Co-Founder and Fleet Manager of Sea Services. “We know which boats are already in good shape and which boats and crews to avoid.”

Every Sea Services crew is required to perform daily safety drills whether they are on scout or safety campaigns for a developer. These drills are documented and become part of the routine audits each vessel undergoes while working with Sea Services.

The ‘Sea Services Certified’ rating tells a developer that they are working with a crew that meets the highest standards in the offshore wind industry, and therefore considers the safety of one another as part of everyone’s responsibility,” Yerman said.