I Was a Male Kings Point Cadet. I Have a Story From My First Ship During Sea Year That Still Makes Me Cringe.

*This account was submitted to MLAA in the summer of 2020 by the victim/survivor, a graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy*

I’m a man who went to Kings Point and graduated a few years ago. This is a story from Sea Year that still makes me cringe.

I was a cadet on my first ship (a containership), and had only been on the ship a few weeks. I was on the bridge with the second mate working on sea projects on the 2000 to 2400 watch. Towards the end of my watch, which was getting close to midnight, the Chief Steward called the bridge and begged the second mate to send me down to help him with the ship’s computer that he used for inventory.

The second mate said no, but the Steward kept begging him, so finally the second mate said yes. He told me to run down to the Steward’s office and quickly help him out.

I ran down to help, but when I arrived at his office no one was there. But the Steward had the door to his stateroom wide open. He saw me walk by and told me to come inside and help him. As soon as I walked into his room, he shut the door behind me.

The Steward was a 50 year old man, who was very crusty and gross looking. He told me to come over to his computer where he was sitting and then he flipped up the screen of his laptop and started to scroll through pictures of naked women and men. While he was doing this he told me that he was having a major issue because he had all these pictures of naked people but couldn't continuously flip through them. He had to open each picture individually.

The pictures were all men and woman that were 30 years older than me. After he saw that I didn't want any part of "helping him" he insisted that I stay while he took care of something. I almost threw up in his room, and eventually escaped. When I got back on the bridge I didn't tell anyone.

This was during the first weeks of a 100 day long hitch. It was after the sea year stand down, and I knew that it was important to get my sea time and to just try and forget about it. But almost every day going forward, when I would walk over to get my food, the Steward would come out of the kitchen, look at me with a really sexual face and make sex noises at me.

He even made a comment about controlling what happened with the food. I never shared this with anyone, and I would like it to stay anonymous. Maybe it's not even a big deal. But it really sucked to be in a position of having to eat the food from someone like this.