Facing Manning Crisis, RFA Highlights Willingness to Train Older Cadets

Facing an existential crisis in manning, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary is highlighting its successes in recruiting and training the next generation of seafarers. The door for new entrants is open, and RFA accepts promising cadets of working age; no "only-under-40" rules apply, and indeed two of its latest recruits are in their mid-40s and 50s - and just now starting out in maritime.

New RFA recruits begin their service with a brief course at Dartmouth, the Royal Navy's officer training base, in order to learn some of the basics of seafaring. After a completion ceremony, they progress onward to learn more about their chosen specialty.

"I was looking for a career which is exciting and challenging," said 45-year-old Ben Pitts, a Liverpool resident and a graduate of the most recent RFA training class. "My time at Dartmouth has been a real eye-opener, challenging, rewarding, and a great experience to learn and grow."

Pitts is pursuing certification as a deck officer, but there are other choices too. Classmate Toni Cupit, 53, joined up to become a logistics officer.

During their time as cadets, they will serve sea tours aboard vessels in the RFA's fleet. The opportunities may be somewhat more limited than in years past: only three of the RFA's ships are operational (surveillance ship RFA Proteus, plus oilers RFA Tidespring and RFA Tidesurge), and they are reportedly crewed below strength. Based on UK defense media reporting, RFA Tiderace has been inactive since 2023 due to manning shortages, RFA Cardigan Bay and Fort Victoria are in long-term layup for similar reasons, RFA Stirling Castle has been transferred to the Royal Navy because of insufficient RFA manpower, and RFA Lyme Bay and Mounts Bay are in drydock for maintenance. The aging RFA Argus has reportedly had class withdrawn because of its poor material condition, and is said to be prohibited from shifting docks because of concerns about the state of her hull.

The root cause of the crisis is a crew shortage, driven in part by low pay (relative to civilian seagoing employment). The RFA's headcount has fallen by a third in the last 15 years, though a newly-negotiated pay deal with the branch's officers' union may go some distance to stemming the decline.

After the discovery of RFA Argus' serious corrosion issues, former officer Cmdre. Tom Sharpe (RN) issued a public call for a top-to-bottom review of the RFA. In an opinion piece, he warned that Argus could have sunk with potentially fatal consequences, and warned that the auxiliary fleet could be "getting close" to a serious accident.

"It's going to be very uncomfortable; there will be senior officers and civil servants probably still serving - although I think some of these things have such a long lead time it goes back decades - who need to be held to account," he wrote. "And they need to be held to account because lack of accountability is one of the real problems defense has across the board."

In this landscape, new officer recruits will be most welcome in the unique career offered by the RFA.

"The work that we do is like nothing else out there. We are amongst the very select group that go out and do this kind of work for any navy," said Commodore Sam Shattock, Commodore RFA, in a statement Sunday.