Christopher Karentz

Captain Karentz started his seagoing experiences sailing in New England waters in the early 1970s. He graduated from Massachusetts Maritime Academy in 1979 and began a career working as a deck officer on commercial ships. He earned his Unlimited Master Mariner’s License at age 26, and since that time has had a varied and extensive background in the maritime industries. His seagoing experience includes commercial ships, tugboats, offshore marine construction, deepwater oil exploration, scientific research, and numerous sail and motor yachts. His land-based employment has included management of U.S. and Foreign flag commercial vessels, yacht management, owner/operator of a tugboat company, vessel chartering, and management of a large yacht marina. As a maritime consultant, he has an extensive history of vessel refit, modification, and repair work for local and international clients.

Captain Karentz was engaged by commercial vessel clients to assist in their compliance with The International Safety Management (ISM) Code. He drafted and implemented safety management systems for individual ship owners and fleet managers and then audited those systems as required for the clients. In 2003, Captain Karentz accepted an in-house marine advisory role with a Miami-based maritime law firm where he offered the 25+ staff of attorney’s technical expertise across the spectrum of marine related activities not limited to litigation, but also consulting on marine contracts, new construction, safety compliance and risk management.

Captain Karentz joined S-E-A in 2011 as Senior Maritime Consultant in the company Fort Lauderdale office. His previous experiences and skills provide him the expertise to perform his current work of assisting maritime attorneys and marine insurers in the admiralty law and marine insurance arenas. This includes regulatory compliance, safety management issues, investigating collisions, allisions, analysis of electronic data, machinery failures and personal injuries. His background and familiarity with numerous types of vessels, operations and management allows him to offer expertise in many areas of the maritime fields that most single-vocation experts cannot provide. His clients have engaged him for commercial ship losses and for projects such as evaluation of high-performance state of the art race craft incidents.