One of the primary concerns of the modern-day maritime transportation is the concept of qualified seafarer. Among these seafarers, watchkeeping officers have particular importance. Because wrong decisions made by the watchkeeping officers regarding management of the ship might have negative impact on the ship, crew and its surroundings. Improving qualification standards of watchkeeping officers is possible by ensuring professional continuity. Wrong ship choices of oceangoing watchkeeping officer candidates might also have negative impact on their professional continuity. To that end, this study ranked the ideal types of ship for oceangoing watchkeeping officer candidates. Fuzzy Extended Analytic Hierarchy Process (FEAHP) method, which is one of the multi-criteria decision making methods used frequently, is used for determining the order of ideal ship types for oceangoing watchkeeping officers. The study concluded that the order of ideal ship types for oceangoing watchkeeping officers is: bulk carrier & general cargo ships, tankers, container ships and RoRo&RoPax ships. Relevance to industryThis study focuses on the concept of ideal ship type selection for oceangoing watchkeeping officer candidates on merchant fleet. Oceangoing watchkeeping officer candidates can easily determine the order of ship type ideal for them by using this method and taking into consideration the available criteria.