COLUMN | Shore leave for crews: is it really too easy to say "no"? [Grey Power]

Scarcely a week goes by without some concerned report about the mental health of seafarers, the incidence of suicide in this global workforce and what can be done about this miserable problem. If it is a slight comfort, identically gloomy surveys reveal much the same about shore side workers, with Gen Z folk so anxious that many would rather stay unemployed and remain safely in their bedrooms.

However, sensible people in our maritime world are asking genuine and difficult questions about sea life with the Seafarers’ Happiness Index acting as a useful barometer of what people at the coalface are thinking. It is no great surprise that shore leave, and its absence, features most regularly in the table of negatives that most need improvement to make life more tolerable.

The Nautical Institute’s current Seaways journal offers a concise and useful summary of what might be termed the “shore leave problem.” Captain Shawn Sequeira emphasises the reasons why shore leave matters, the patchy performance of improvements, and the recognition by both the Maritime Labour Convention and IMO of its importance in providing decent working conditions appropriate to the century in which we live.

However, the polling still reveals that substantial numbers go for entire deep sea voyages lasting months on end without being able to set foot on shore. As for the various authorities, who find it so much easier to refuse requests, recommendations and guidelines are like water off a duck’s back.

It is absolutely no problem for people in authority – ports and terminals, immigration and customs – to concoct cast-iron reasons for their refusals. Quarantine regulations, the security situation, visa denials, safety concerns – the excuses are endless and interchangeable.

Just this week we learned of the Trump regime in the US making it just about impossible to relieve a crewmember or change crews in a US port. They are no different from so many “difficult” states that are delighted for merchant ships to keep them fed and fuelled and take away their exports, but treat their crews as if they were robots – inanimate objects.

Then there are plenty of operational reasons why, when a ship is safely berthed, no shore leave is possible, because everyone is needed aboard, to accompany the hordes of well-rested officials demanding to inspect things, tick the right boxes and fulfil the necessary bureaucratic requirements, look after the cargo interchange and keep the ship safe and secure.

The minute the ship is alongside, every effort on the port’s behalf will be devoted to getting rid of her. Huge investments in science and cargo-handling technology have been made to this end. Permitting a few of the crew to spend some hours ashore is too much trouble to organise and an unnecessary waste of resources.

Can there be any answer to this dilemma in reconciling the needs of a few individuals with the smooth running of the ship and the port? Captain Sequeira suggests that the inconsistency of any enforcement of the MLC and fair treatment guidelines is a major block and standardised global policies are necessary. He also suggests that more robust advocacy, digital shore leave clearance and more investment in port welfare would help.

But if the welfare of seafarers is low down the list of priorities as a ship hauls over the horizon, this is really something that needs to change. The fact is that there are ports that are exemplars in treating seafarers well, so there are models which all could follow. They prove that it is not impossible to regard seafarers as fellow human beings rather than aliens.

My view, for what it is worth, is that we should highlight the very best examples of welcoming ports, but shame those who offer seafarers nothing but grief.

Some years ago, the shipping industry got very exercised about ports that refused to provide decent waste reception facilities and set about shaming them, and within a short space of time, it made a difference. Shipowners and charterers, who are the customers of ports and without whom the ports would simply silt up and die, could be a lot more robust in ensuring that their shipboard staff were treated in a civilised fashion by ports and terminals.

They should, figuratively speaking, be rocking the boat a lot more.