Maritime Charity Column: reversing the direction of travel on shore leave, by Katie Higginbottom, head of the ITF Seafarers' Trust

Whilst retired old seadogs reminisce about their adventures in foreign ports, seafaring today is a very different proposition. With luck you earn a good salary and have a career path, but at a cost: long hours, long contracts and barely time to set foot on dry land. The Covid-19 pandemic certainly did not help matters. With this in mind, the ITF Seafarers' Trust launched a seafarer survey to get a sense of the current situation and the attitude of today's seafarers.

With almost six thousand responses it was clear that the subject touched a nerve. The World Maritime University analysed the data, and the findings have been published in the report Shore Leave: Rare, Brief and in Danger of Extinction.

The results are telling:

• one in four seafarers do not get shore leave at all, and a third have only one or two incidents of shore leave during their contract
• 47% said their shore leave was less than 3 hours ashore
• seafarers on tankers and offshore vessels had less shore leave
• officers had less chance to go ashore than ratings and other ranks

The responses also reveal the depth of feeling amongst seafarers. This is not only about access to shore leave but about perceptions of neglect and injustice. For seafarers, the inability to take shore leave indicates a lack of respect for the profession. Reduced time in port, high workloads, increased bureaucracy and security restrictions have combined with multiple other factors to make shore leave a virtual impossibility.

The report concludes that nowadays 'being at sea means staying on ships', as access to shore leave access has been eroded. It asks whether the current situation is leading towards the extinction of shore leave as a viable concept.

The challenge now is to engage all stakeholders – from Flag States to Port States, agents to shipping companies, and seafarers themselves – to reverse the direction of travel.

• Read the full report

Shore leave: your rights

Entitlement to annual leave is enshrined in the Maritime Labour Convention 2006 (MLC) under Regulation 2.4, which states that seafarers should have adequate leave – paid annual leave and shore leave – for the benefit of their health and well-being.

The regulations are summarised below:

• flag states have to determine minimum standards for annual leave, taking into account your special needs as a seafarer
• employed seafarers are entitled to 2.5 days of paid annual leave per month of employment, and an additional 8 days of paid leave per year in respect of public holidays
• justified absences from work, such as sickness or attendance at an approved training course, cannot be considered annual leave. It is forbidden to deny or buy off your entitlement to paid annual leave
• while you are on leave, all other contractual entitlements still apply; when you have signed off, the contract ends
• you should have the right to take annual leave in your home country unless you agree otherwise. If you do have to take your leave from a different place then you should be entitled to free transportation at the shipowner’s expense to your place of recruitment as well as subsistence for the duration of the journey. The travel time should not be deducted from your paid annual leave

The UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency has also published a Merchant Shipping Notice (MSN 1877) on the application of the MLC  hours of work and leave regulations (MLC Regulations 2.3 and 2.4) as they apply to UK ships and non-UK ships with no maritime labour certificate in UK waters.

Image: Danny Cornelissen

Nautilus guide to the MLC MCA guide to shore leave regulations