A Letter from RightShip’s CEO on Day of the Seafarer

Today marks the 10th year that our industry has recognised the Day of the Seafarer. Since 2011, we’ve taken the opportunity to focus on the tireless efforts of our essential workers and also stopped to consider the sacrifices they make. However, in recent years the challenges that our seafarers face have become far more prominent, due to Covid-19 which continues to cause personal devastation and supply chain disruptions around the world.  

We have a responsibility as a community to do more for our seafarers. Do more, not pledge more or talk more. Do more. At RightShip, we take that task seriously, with many of our staff having experienced life on board first-hand as part of their careers. They understand the risks, isolation and the impact on physical and mental health.  

Each year, we make charitable donations to programs and centres in the regions we operate in. This year, that includes:  

• Houston, US: Attendance at the Houston International Seafarers’ Centre (HISC) 2021 Maritime Gala and made an unrestricted donation 
• Australia / Asia Pacific: Donation to the Mission to Seafarers’ Centre, located in Melbourne, Australia.  
• London, UK: Unrestricted donation to the Queen Victoria’s Seamen’s Rest (QVSR)  

We are not content to simply disperse funds, though. We seek to act. This involves getting to the core of the issues associated with working at sea and driving true cultural change.  

Several factors impact wellbeing. These include crew welfare, extensions to the time spent on board, Covid-19 safety and repatriation concerns and much more. We know that crew performance can be traced directly to on-board incidents, and rather than measuring the effects of crew wellbeing via our Safety Score only, RightShip has the ambition to address the cause.  

In 2020 we developed the RightShip Crew Questionnaire to assess and understand the current situation on board vessels and take action to improve crew welfare. While we do not presently apply it broadly, we believe it could become a vehicle to capture data proactively to feed into a crew wellbeing score design. 

A line-up of the most influential ship management companies and owners have committed to working with us in an alliance to establish paths to resolution that drive the improvement of safety, health and competence in seafarers. 

We believe that beyond safety, a wellbeing score could help the industry to see a holistic quality indicator that is integrated with safety and sustainability.  

RightShip intends to make crew wellbeing a robust part of our offering and I welcome parties interested in supporting and participating in such an endeavour to join.  

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us if this is something you see value in. Collectively we must work towards the Day of the Seafarer becoming a celebration of our seafarers working happily and safely with all the tools and support they need to carry out their work to keep the world’s supply chain ticking along.  

Kind regards,  

Steen Lund 

CEO, RightShip