He has encountered pirates off Madras and been shipped out of Congo at the height of a civil war.
So the recent appointment as harbour master for Galway should be a sinecure for Brian Sheridan, who took over the job from his father last year. Instead, it is one of the least envied among his colleagues.
A combination of a narrow channel, lock gates and the location of the river Corrib make for a "challenging" approach.
Small wonder that even ships exempt from pilotage will put in a request for help. The Naval Service and the Commissioners of Irish Lights won't risk entering unaided.
"In winter, when the Corrib is in spate, it can be very interesting," Brian said as he escorted the new Irish Lights tender, Granuaile.
"The river rushes down to the quay wall and bounces off on to the ship's hull, pushing the bow around to port. It is what we call the `cushion effect'."
To counteract it, he and his fellow pilots instruct ships' masters to accelerate before approaching the lock gates. "The lock entrance is 19.8 metres and you can't afford to get it wrong. At the same time, we have had situations where it has. One Russian master refused the order and ran aground." There is no other port quite like it, and no other job quite like Brian's as a result. "Electronic charts which show the ship's precise position make it a lot easier than it was before," he explained, as Capt Robert McCabe, master of the Granuaile, dropped from three knots to one outside the lock.
However, even a light south to south-easterly can make life difficult. The fact that the tender had only one metre to spare on either side made for a nerve-wracking seven- to eight-minute passage.
Although the £18 million Dutch-built vessel is linked to the satellite-based navigation system, differential GPS, and has its own helicopter pad, pollution equipment and emergency towing, it was totally in the hands of the harbour master as it proceeded through the lock.
Brian favours such traffic and believes the port's closeness to the city makes for an ideal marine research base. "There could be such a spin-off in terms of money spent on rest and recreation in the town, and in terms of onshore services," he said.