Is this the beginning of a trend?
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At Military Sealift Command the new travel restrictions and quarantine requirements have functionally resulted in the same. Itās still the policy at MSC to provide crew relief. Its just that it has become very difficult to meet the travel requirements to send crew reliefs.
I personally know of a few mariners who have reliefs assigned, want to travel, are cleared to travel but who can not get a flight out to the ship.
(The travel requirements require a mariner not to land or layover in an infected country which includes almost all of Europe, Bahrain, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and more.)
Any word on MLL? They should be able to do almost all crew change stateside so hopefully Americans wonāt be stuck at sea for the (18 month+) duration.
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Iām supposed to be flying to Busan to relieve a guy on a union contracted MSC vessel. I need this job, I hope I can get there.
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We have someone who finally got their relief onboard. Now the office wonāt let the relieved person fly home. Weāll keep him on as an augment, so heās not abandoned.
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After reconsideration, the office will now fly the crewman home.
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Well I can tell you Iām not goin to Busan anytime soon. Supposedly no crew changes until April 18th. Since nothing significant will change that quickly I doubt Iāll be workin then but my bags are packed. They will most likely stay packed in the U.S. for quite awhileā¦
I feel for the crew that have completed their 120 and want to go home (including a young man that was supposed to get married.)
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Unless something miraculous happens soon, this will be inevitable for all mariners at least until some sort of enhanced screening process is implemented. If a vessel ends up quarantined itās effectively out of business until the quarantine is lifted.
Crowley tankers have followed suit until April 7. As of now.
MSC just cancelled shore leave in Diego Garcia(MPS-2). This is going to get real quick as some Star Wars Bar(Seamanās Club) regulars dry out. MPS-3 has already been restricted for a week. I am told it is fleet wide coming from the MSC Commander.
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Well shit, canāt even golf nine on the carpet covered reef.
Wow. Does this go for union contracted ships? I was all set to fly to Busan, Korea in 10 days but the company put all crew changes on hold (except Saipan I think).
Do you think that may be because of the MSC directive? Iām screwed. I need this job now. But itās not all about me. A crew member is due for relief so he can get married.
Yep. The crew on the vessel I know of in Busan canāt leave the dock now.
If you are talking PCS , last week crewing said they will re-evaluate in 30 days. This was after initially we were told 60 days.
As far as DG goes there is now only 1 flight each week for āessentialā folks. There were 4 joining crew in Singapore last week that were in the hotel a few days waiting becuase of delayed and then cancelled flights. They were all sent back CONUS when it appeared AMC would not be allowing the ānon-essentialsā to fly. I barely made it back flying though Singapore, my flight was the 2nd to last with joining crew. Itās odd that NSF DG is not quarantined but the ships are all on lock down. We can still see the charter boats going out each day and most of the island is operating normally with social distancing measure in place.
OSG and ATC have suspended crew changes for 30 days starting today
I work for Military Sealift Command. The five thousand or so of us are used to being relieved several weeks to months past our relief dates. Heck, many of us donāt even talk about ārelief datesā anymore. Weāll say āa month till Iām overdueā.
Compassion? Hah! Welcome to our world, pussies!
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There are 70000 āpussiesā waiting to be relieved (and probably an equal number waiting to go to work):
They are stranded around the world, being denied permission to even go ashore for a few hours, let alone transfer to an airport to travel to their home.
At least their employers and unions are trying to do something about it, but fear and lack of compassion in some countries is difficult to break through.
Lack of support from fellow seafarers is more difficult to understand, (I know; they are ā3rd world villagersā, so donāt count as much as those 5000 or so that serve on MSC ships)
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More is being done to solve the crew change problem around the world:
But the help (and understanding of the problem) by Govts. are needed.
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