The Feel-Sorry-For-Seafarers Industry

By MarEx

John Guy, author and maritime advisor, gives his opinion on life at sea and back home:

We used to joke when we went back to sea after leave that we knew it was time to go because coming down to breakfast we had found our seaman’s book beside the plate.

The BBC has just broadcast a Thinking Allowed program which highlights the work of Professor Helen Sampson, Director of the Seafarers International Research Centre at Cardiff University. It seems she has won a sociology prize for finding out that seafarers’ wives get fed up of them being at home for too long.

There may be a bit more to her research than that, written up in her winning tome International seafarers and transnationalism in the twenty-first century. What struck me though was the degree of muddled thinking which surrounds seafaring.

The judges who read the work said they were struck by the ghastly nature of seafaring, and Professor Sampson makes a song and dance about noise and vibration on ships she has sailed on. One of her colleagues is quoted talking about flagging out and a race to the bottom.

They are good examples of the feel-sorry-for-seafarers industry which has grown up and which fuels this boloney. It is true there are bad ships and bad owners, but there always have been. The worst ship I ever sailed on, totally unsafe and crewed and managed by madmen, was British flag and owned by a well-known Scottish shipowner. There are also good ships and good owners who pay well under all sorts of flags and a lot of seafarers who are very happy with their lives.

Those seafarers are often quite happy to see the back of their wives and get back to sea. Out there you can’t hear out of touch academics whingeing about how tough your life is.

John Guy served on merchant ships and warships for sixteen years before becoming a ship inspector and then a journalist. He advises companies and organizations working in the global shipping industry on media and crisis management. His latest novel is The Golden Tide.

Source: Maritime Executive