Red Sea transits risk crew lives as well as ships

Red Sea transits risk crew lives as well as ships
Lloyd’s List 23 Aug 2024 https://www.lloydslist.com/LL1150343/Red-Sea-transits-risk-crew-lives-as...

If anything has to take a hit, let it be a company’s bottom line rather than its seafarers

LONDON’S Tower Hill Memorial pays tribute to the British merchant seafarers who gave their lives in two world wars and know no grave but the sea.

It remains little known, and rarely even noticed by the crowds of eager sightseers who flock to the neighbouring Tower of London all year round.

Nevertheless it is an imposing monument and well worth a visit. Originally designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the famous Edwardian architect responsible for the layout of New Delhi as an imperial capital, the sight of 36,000 names carved in Portland stone will prove especially moving for anybody in the shipping industry.

More than a century after the first deaths the monument records, merchant seafarers still find themselves in harm’s way in the Black Sea and Red Sea.

The combined death toll of merchant seafarer fatalities from these conflicts seems to be contained in single figures.

Even so, the courage of crews serving in those theatres should be gratefully commended. Those of us who contend with no challenge more arduous than a delayed tube train when heading for the office do not come up against the possibility of Russian missile attacks or Houthi drone strikes on the daily commute.

Seafarers do enjoy some contractual safeguards. Thanks to a deal negotiated by the International Transport Workers’ Federation, those asked to transit a war zone have the right to sign off.

Surprisingly few of them exercise it, as was revealed in a Lloyd’s List interview with Henrik Jensen, chief executive of Danica Crewing Specialists, earlier this week.

One factor in the willingness to work as normal is obviously the entitlement to double basic pay for each day spent in a high-risk area. This, another facet of the ITF deal, is tantamount to danger money.

In the case of an AB or rating from a poor country, it amounts to literally a couple of hundred extra bucks. Even if the odds of death are low, if you want to approach things in such hard-headed fashion, this is not the kind of stakes for which most of us would happily play.

Shipowners have scant cause for complaint. Set against the hundreds of thousands of dollars payable in additional premiums to war risk insurers, such bonuses are effectively chump change.

The families of those killed will also get compensation. But the grim metrics habitually employed by underwriters dictate that Filipino and Bangladeshi lives are deemed to be worth just a fraction of the value assigned to officers from more affluent nations.

There is a grim rational utilitarian calculation to be made in ensuring continued export of grains from Ukraine to markets where they constitute a staple foodstuff, thereby averting famine.

By contrast, the case for Red Sea transits right now is in no way morally attractive. Most of the owners who opt to make them are largely motivated by enhanced profit.

Their reasoning is largely premised on the realisation that it is far cheaper to take the shortcut than go the long way round the Cape of Good Hope.

Consider the fate of Sounion (IMO: 9312145), a Greek-flag suezmax evacuated on Thursday after being struck by three separate Houthi projectiles.

It is not as if owners Delta Tankers were not forewarned. Sounion was the third of the company’s vessels to have sustained damage in this manner in just two weeks, following in the footsteps of Delta Blue (IMO: 9601235) and Delta Atlantica (IMO: 9419101) earlier in August.

The attacks would not have happened had the ships rerouted, in line with the decision taken by the overwhelming majority of shipowners in all market segments to give the Suez Canal a swerve.

Using the Bab el Mandeb when there are obvious alternatives is unconscionable behaviour. If anything has to take a hit, let it be a company’s bottom line rather than its crews.

The Houthis are inexcusably using the war in Gaza to justify their wilful devastation. The Red Sea should be off limits for shipping until they stop their aggression, which may or may not happen until a resolution is reached.

Sadly, both Israel and Hamas maintain determined recalcitrant postures, despite viable proposals for a ceasefire tabled by US secretary of state Antony Blinken.

There is now a real chance of generalised war in the Middle East, with incalculable consequences for shipping, the world economy, and the interests of peace generally.

Shipowners cannot ignore the lessons of past conflicts, which entail that hazards for seafarers should be minimised by any means necessary.

Anyone not convinced of that proposition might do well to visit the Tower Hill Memorial next time they are in London, and spend a few minutes in quiet reflection.