Possible good news for U.K. flag

[John Arton]

ACL chief is not ruling out switching ships to U.K. flag that is top of the European white list of flag states, though whether or not it would employ U.K. seafarers seems not to be on the cards.
Rgds
J.A.
https://lloydslist.maritimeintellige...-move-to-Malta

[happy daze john in oz]

They may well adopt the flag, but like all shipping companies now, nothing new in this, they will employ at the lowest possible rate.

[Ivan Cloherty]

Well they have to get the crews from somewhere, from what I can see, the youngsters of today in the UK have no desire to go to sea to see the world, they can get on a plane and take their i-pads with them, at sea they may be out of internet coverage and their world would come to an end

[Julian Norman]

Many of the ships I have been on as a pilot in the last few years which have flown the British flag , I have found that the flag is the only British thing on the ship!

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Ivan.
The kids of today have been brought up in a different world to ours, it seems they can travel the world on a cheap airline ticket, stay in cheap accommodation, picking fruit for drinking money; and their happy. We didn't have TV, only cinema; to take in the Awe of the world, but boy what a world we got to know when we went to sea, all of what we remember now in our day dreams, if only we could put our memories on a disk we would make a fortune.
Cheers Des

[j.sabourn]

And end up in a divorce court Des. JS

[Les Woodard]

It is a wonder that shipping companies have not thought of crewing up with retired seafarers as there would be plenty out there who are either single or their sheriff would love a break away from them LOL. Mind you they would have to make sure that there was a ships doctor on board. Lets face it? With all the bloody health and safety crap all that hard yakker that we used to do is now redundant to what I believe that even all the mooring lines are on automatic winch's. No sticks to play around with especially on box boats. What would we require other than three squares a day and a bed when of watch. Could even get the three on watch going again so at least there would be a pair of eyes (maybe somewhat out of vision) unlike today's lot that do not have anyone on lookout anymore I believe. Yep pie in sky thoughts but someone had to say it LOL

[j.sabourn]

They could even chopper out the medications as needed if ran out of supplies. The press gangs still existed in Aberdeen in the 1980s for certain vessel types. Maybe they are waiting for history to repeat itself. JS

[thomas michael]

They could even chopper out the medications as needed if ran out of supplies. The press gangs still existed in Aberdeen in the 1980s for certain vessel types. Maybe they are waiting for history to repeat itself. JS

hi john sabourn
these throw away lines of yours, im sure others on this site may not realise that what you are saying was absolutely true, as throughout the fishing industry towns, the company runners would track all there crews that where signed on to sail that day, or next, through every pub and brothel and mission, they would hunt you down and press you to sail on their vessels and this was still company law into i believe the seventies.
tom

[Jim R Christie]

As I remember the ACL ships have Eastern European crews, although they did have British cadets onboard as they participated in the tonnage tax. Of course as soon as their cadetships were complete ACL immediately made them redundant.
A large chunk of the cadets in the system now will have no job to go to once they gain their COC because the demand isn't there, many will either abandon the maritime world entirely or move into jobs ashore.
I've sailed with a large number of individuals sailing as AB or motormen etc these past few years who are ex cadets with tickets and can't otherwise find a job.
Covid has also led to large scale redundancies of British seamen of all ranks, particularly amongst the ferry companies.