For 22-year-old Magnus Krogh Otzen, the first part of his embarkation on the container ship AXEL MÆRSK was at times characterised by frustration and uncertainty. After having prepared for his first voyage at Svendborg International Maritime Academy (SIMAC), he was excited about acquiring new seafaring skills. Yet, he occasionally felt like dead weight around his superordinates.
“It would have been great if on the first day there was a person who had sat down with me and taken the time to identify precisely my competencies and what I was ready for”, Magnus Krogh Otzen says. Instead, he decided to take matters into his own hands and addressed the ship’s training officer. After a while without a permanent mentor, 2nd officer Anja Boytang signed on and took on the role as a mentor to Magnus Krogh Otzen.
“Anja was relatively young in comparison with the other officers, she had her own cadetship fresh in mind and could remember what it was like to be a cadet. Anja had also studied at SIMAC and knew both about how we were trained and the instructors.”
With his new mentor, Magnus Krogh Otzen experienced that the focus was on him, his knowledge and personal development. Anja Boytang made sure that Magnus’ appetite for new tasks was met, she provided him with thorough instruction and involved him in activities such as mooring, safety inspections, and vessel maintenance. “It is of crucial importance that you, as a mentor, give priority to carefully explaining and demonstrating tasks and approaches to solutions. It takes more time, but you cannot compromise on that because it will enhance the cadets’ autonomy and will eventually make them able to perform a task, such as risk assessment, on their own.”
It was essential for Magnus Krogh Otzen’s development and life on board that he was met with trust, was given responsibility and specific tasks by Anja Boytang.
Even though their shifts did not always coincide, they found a system ensuring that Magnus Krogh Otzen was continually occupied and did not feel left to himself.
“Anja would write a note and put it on my door before ending her shift at 4 a.m. It meant that I always had things to go ahead with in the morning, and when we met up for lunch, we could discuss the tasks and look over new ones together,” he says
Magnus Krogh Otzen is convinced that having a dedicated and committed mentor has given him a great head start.
“There is no doubt that it made me more motivated. Besides, I got to try out a wide range of tasks that extended way beyond my current education level,” he says and elaborates:
“I believe that we made quite a team because I took initiatives and because Anja was good at challenging me and weaving a common thread through my tasks. We also spend time together in our free time, which helped build confidence between us and thereby we got a better idea of each other’s way of being”.
