Every year, nearly 2,000 maritime officers graduate from Ukrainian merchant navy schools, on top of far larger numbers of non-ranked sailors. Unable to find job at home, the vast majority of these sailors are forced to look for employment abroad. Ukrainian sailors working under various flags and are thought to make up about 1% of the international maritime labour market. Ukrainian sailors are both well-trained and cheap, making them highly prized by international shipping companies. However, many Ukrainian sailors often complain about bad working conditions, violations of human rights, violations of safety rules, bad equipment, outdated ships and irregular payment in the foreign companies that they are being hired for through crewing agencies. A brace of recent incidents, one involving multiple fatalities, has highlighted the dangers facing Ukraine’s merchant marine men as their struggle to make their way on the seven seas.
Stranded in South Africa
Last week, eleven Ukrainian sailors were finally set to leave South Africa, where they had been stuck for more than ten months after their ship was impounded in Richard’s Bay harbour. The master of the ship, Sergiy Shapovalov, confirmed last Tuesday that he had been informed the crew of his ship would be allowed to head home this Monday.
Their ship, the MV Lady East, arrived in Richard’s Bay last May, but was arrested after being deemed unseaworthy and losing its American Bureau of Shipping status.
Durban-based Island View Shipping, which had contracted the vessel to carry a 32,000 metric tonne load of bulk chrome ore from Richard’s Bay to China, obtained a Durban High Court order in February for the St. Vincent and Grenadines-registered vessel to be sold, which it consequently was at public auction.
Although it is not clear what will eventually happen to the ship, Shapovalov said the new owners had offered to keep on the crew. But they all refused, with Shapovalov saying the crew had not been paid for the past five months. He did not expect his crew to struggle to find jobs as there is huge demand for experienced shipping crews in Europe.
Chinese tug tragedy
Also last week, divers found three bodies inside a Ukrainian tugboat which sank in Hong Kong waters earlier this month as they searched for a total of 18 sailors thought trapped in the hulk. If all 18 Ukrainians are found dead, it would be the worst marine disaster for decades in Hong Kong, one of the world’s leading ports and maritime centres. The tugboat sank in waters near to Hong Kong’s international airport after it collided with a Chinese cargo ship in foggy conditions. The 2,723-tonne tug had a 24-strong Ukrainian crew and one Chinese sailor aboard. Six Ukrainians and the Chinese sailor were rescued.
An inspection six months ago on the Naftogaz-67, which was located stuck upside down on the sea bed at a depth of 37 metres (120 feet), had uncovered a catalogue of problems. Chinese news reports report cited information from Lloyd’s Marine Intelligence Unit that an inspection in the nearby Chinese port of Shenzhen had detailed safety faults, as well as technical and navigational problems on the tug.
In addition, port authorities in Hong Kong detained the tug twice in 2003 after it had failed safety inspections. San Francisco port authorities had also detained the ship once that year. One of the reasons for one of the Hong Kong detentions - when a ship is made to stay in port until it is considered safe - was a failure to provide emergency breathing apparatus, news reports said.
No fleet of their own
These two latest examples illustrated a number of problems in Ukraine’s maritime industry. Pavlo Kurdyukin, former head of Ukraine’s Black Sea Steamship Company, which no longer exists following privatisation in the late 1990s, said that the key problem for Ukrainian sailors is that there is no proper fleet in Ukraine, since the country’s two other steamship companies – Ukrrichflot and the Azov Steamship Company – are not seen as national brands.
“In Soviet times, the Black Sea Steamship Company was 95% busy with foreign trade contracts with Cuba, Vietnam, India and other countries,” explains Kurdyukin. After the Soviet collapse, he continues, the company lost all of its contracts and was forced to work on a market basis. “Freight centres were created in London, Hamburg, Piraeus, Saigon, Singapore and New York, which helped load our fleet. In 1995, there were 274 ships in the Black Sea Steamship company. Since then, the fleet has begun disappearing. Dozens of ships moved to off-shore jurisdictions and dozens were sold for scrap or repossessed in lieu of artificially-created debts.”
The company, which had brought a decent profit according to Kurdyukin, was then sold off. “Ukraine was a real sea power; our ships and dockyards were the Soviet Union’s best,” he adds with a note of regret.
Good training, no practice
Kurdyukin stressed that Ukrainian sailors are very well-educated since Ukraine still has proper maritime schools with good teaching facilities. “It’s no secret that Ukrainian sailors are highly regarded throughout the world. Nearly all of them are from the Black Sea Steamship Company.”
However, while training remains of a high standard the lack of a proper fleet in the country means that Ukraine’s sailors tend to lack practice, which has caused problems on the international recruiting market. “It turned out that, despite good education and training, many of our graduates have had to bribe officials to get aboard for at least one trip prior to be hired anywhere else,” says Kurdyukin.
