Industry’s doom and gloom PR is sinking seafaring

What other industry would:

·         Take every opportunity to talk up concerns around  “mental health” and “wellbeing” in a profoundly negative light? Not to mention leaving the definition of these to whoever wants to talk about it?

·         Highlight “harassment and bullying” as a key topic at every event, with no mention of the flip-side of officers at all levels now terrified of cracking a joke or giving clear feedback to the people they are responsible for developing? (Whistleblower channels are now being used to apply pressure on the very people responsible for the safety, growth and development of the crew.)

·         Tag along with all the providers of “woe awaits us” – programs, leaving the rest of the world with the impression that seafaring is a one-way path to a life of struggle and hazard, both physically and mentally?

 To spell it out: in our eagerness to come across as well-meaning, caring, and utterly in tune with the zeitgeist we are making the career of seafaring unattractive. We talk about attracting and retaining generation this, generation that, millennials. The fact that we even buy into the concept of generation-this-that-or-the-other is telling: that someone born a year after someone else should be profoundly different is right up there with astrology.

 We combine this with pleas for help to make seafaring attractive as a profession. It takes a special kind of mental contortion to land where we are. And yet, we are now in a corner we are busily painting ever smaller.

Where are the voices arguing the counter-narrative here? The fact that seafaring is a much safer and more lucrative career than almost anything available in the home countries of the majority of the world’s seafarers?

·         The fact that you can work 40 years, earn good money, raise a family, all in an industry governed by international conventions? With insurance coverages most of your compatriots at home ashore can only dream of?

·         The fact that the vast majority of the world’s shipowners and managers genuinely care for their seafarers?

We need to flip the script. We need to focus on the meaningful rewards and profound opportunities offered at sea. We need to highlight the countless stories of personal growth, the journeys to financial stability, the calm of the endless horizon, the team spirit built onboard, the immense scope for learning, the room to shift from ship to shore and back, and so much more.

Can we get on with this, please? Maybe make it a weekly column, where someone from the industry spends a page explaining how amazing it all is? As Bjørn Højgaard, CEO of Anglo-Eastern, once said: “I started off chipping rust.”