A career agent for crew.
A recruiter for vessels.

Yes — always. MLC 2006 prohibits charging seafarers for placement, and we agree with it. Finn, your verified profile, benchmarks and coaching are free, and there is nothing to upgrade to.

Yes. Crew profiles are real from today: talk to Finn at laiva.io/crew, upload documents when it suits you, and Laiva's team verifies within 48 hours. Only the shortlists shown to vessels during the show use demo profiles; live introductions to the real pool follow straight after.

Three things, and nothing else. An introduction fee when you and a candidate both say yes to an introduction — you see the shortlist of three first, so you only pay to meet people you have chosen. Optional services when you want them: interview coordination, references, contract support. And a placement fee, a share of salary, only when you hire through Laiva. No retainer, no exclusivity. The figures are confirmed by the Laiva team.

Tickets are checked against the issuing authority (MCA and flag-state registers), STCW and ENG1 are checked for validity and expiry, and sea service is confirmed with structured references from previous captains or management. A profile only shows as verified once Laiva's team has done that — the agents never assert it on their own.

No. Discretion mode is on by default: your profile is hidden from your current vessel and its management company, and no vessel sees your profile at all until you say yes to an introduction. There are no open applications anywhere in the system.

Finn is the career agent crew talk to — he builds your profile in conversation, knows your tickets and sea time, and works for you between jobs, not just during a search. Isla is the crew recruiter vessels brief, on WhatsApp — she turns a plain-language request into a structured brief and comes back with a shortlist that explains itself. Both are AI, both are Laiva's, and every conversation is logged and reviewable by a human.

The target for senior roles is a verified, explained candidates shortlist within 72 hours of the brief. The industry average to fill a captain's seat is eleven weeks.

It would be, unless handled openly — so it is. Crew data is firewalled from Laiva's brokerage and management lines, the placement activity sits in its own entity, and we publish a neutrality charter with third-party assurance of matching fairness. Crew must be able to trust that the agent serves their career, not any one vessel.

Founding membership is for professional crew on 40m+ vessels: captains, chief officers, chief engineers, chief stews, chefs and other heads of department — and for the vessels, owner's reps and management companies that hire them. Junior and daywork role functionality will follow later.

Isla works over WhatsApp because that is where yachting already hires, but she is available on the web too, and Finn runs in the browser on any phone. Nothing to install.

In the EU (Ireland), under GDPR: encrypted in transit and at rest, a copy or erasure on request, and every agent conversation logged for review. Documents you upload are seen only by Laiva's verification team — they are never shown to vessels. Full detail on the Your data page.