Celebrating the day of the seafarer

25th of June is the "Day of the Seafarer", recognizing the invaluable contribution seafarers make to international trade and the world economy, often at great personal cost to themselves and their families.

Ships transport around 80 percent of the world’s goods trade. Seafarers are not only responsible for the operations of ships but are also responsible for the safe and smooth delivery of the cargo.

The “Day of the Seafarer” not only acknowledges the invaluable work of seafarers, but also aims to bring global attention to the issues affecting their work and lives. It calls on governments to develop policies that lead to fair treatment of seafarers at ports and asks shipping companies and owners to provide their employees proper facilities and comforts while they are at sea.

New challenges during the pandemic

In the wake of the pandemic, seafarers all around the world found themselves on the front line of the global response and subject to difficult working conditions surrounding uncertainties and difficulties around port access, supply, crew changeovers and repatriation. Our crew onboard also faced difficulties in the beginning of the pandemic with few scheduled crew changes being carried through during 2ndquarter last year.

The whole shipping industry strongly urged governments to act and to support seafarers amidst of the pandemic. We are pleased to see that collective action has given results. Although still difficult, restrictions have eased in several regions since the last year’s “Day of the Seafarer” and we have succeeded in making an increasing number of crew changes during the second half of 2020 and to date in 2021. Currently, only 8,73 % of the crew onboard KCC vessels have more than one-month delayed repatriation and no crew member has stayed more than 10 months onboard any of KCC’s vessels.