Travelling to Join a Ship: Tickets, Visas, Reimbursement

The journey to join a ship is normally arranged and paid for by the manning office or the owner, and the employment agreement says so in writing. The relief is planned backwards from the joining date, not forwards from the day the seafarer leaves home. If a flight is missed and the ship sails, the incoming seafarer stays on the company's account until a new joining port is fixed, and the wages question is settled by the agreement, not by the airport. The principle is not maritime, it is logistical, and a reader who wants a worked example of a dated, sourced answer on a northern trip can look at how a caribou hunt in Quebec is planned from the season backwards, with each entry carrying its date of verification.

Who pays for the journey to join a ship?

The employment agreement, or the crew agreement signed at the manning office, carries a clause on repatriation and on travel to and from the vessel. In most contracts the employer pays the cost of the journey from the seafarer's home country or the agreed point of departure to the ship, and back again at the end of the contract. That clause usually names the class of ticket, the route, and the point at which the company's responsibility begins.

The practical reading is this: the company books, or the company reimburses against receipts. Where the office books the ticket itself, the seafarer carries a copy of the itinerary and the contact of the agent who will meet him. Where the seafarer books, the agreement should state the ceiling, the class, and the deadline for submitting receipts. A receipt submitted three months after the event is a receipt that gets argued about.

Some agreements separate the two legs. The journey to the ship is a joining expense; the journey home is repatriation. They are paid from the same pocket but they are not the same clause, and a dispute over one does not automatically settle the other.

How a relief is planned backwards from the joining date

The joining date is the fixed point. Everything else is counted back from it.

A relief officer's relief is worked out from the date the ship needs him on board, which is itself worked out from the date the officer he replaces signs off. From the joining date the office counts back the travel days, the visa processing time, the medical certificate, the seaman's book renewal, and the notice the seafarer needs to give his current employer. A relief that looks simple on a spreadsheet is a chain of documents, and the longest link in the chain sets the date.

This is why the office asks for documents early. A visa appointment that is only available in three weeks moves the joining date, and a joining date that moves moves the sign-off date of the man on board. The whole rotation is a single line, and the man at the far end of it is the one who waits.

A hunter preparing a first trip north reads the same way: the season, the licence and the flight are counted back from the day in the field, and the paperwork that takes longest sets the departure.

What does a seafarer carry, and what is reimbursed?

The documents come first. Passport with sufficient validity, a valid visa for the country of the joining port and for any country of transit, the seaman's book or continuous discharge certificate, the medical certificate, the certificate of competency and the flag state endorsements, and the vaccination record where the port requires it. Some countries require a letter of guarantee or a crew list from the agent at the port, and the agent sends it ahead.

Then the kit. Boiler suit, safety shoes, gloves, and the personal items that the ship does not issue. The company's allowance for personal luggage is usually stated, and excess baggage is usually the seafarer's cost unless the agreement says otherwise.

Reimbursement is against receipts, in the currency named in the agreement, submitted within the stated period. Taxi fares, hotel nights caused by a connection, and the cost of a visa are the usual items. Alcohol, personal shopping and the cost of a stopover the seafarer chose are not. Where the office booked the ticket, there is nothing to reimburse on that leg; where the seafarer booked it, the receipt is the claim.

What happens when a relief is delayed and the ship has to sail?

The ship sails. A vessel on a charter has a laycan and a schedule, and it does not wait for a flight. The man on board stays on board until the relief arrives at a port the ship can actually reach.

The incoming seafarer is then held on the company's account, usually in a hotel at the port of departure or at the next joining port, with a daily allowance if the agreement provides one. His wages normally begin at the date of joining the vessel, not the date he left home, unless the agreement says otherwise. The delay is documented: the office records the reason, the missed connection, the new joining port, and the new date.

The man already on board is the one who carries the cost in time. His relief date moves, his leave is shortened, and his own onward booking at home may have to be changed. A well-run office tells him the new date as soon as it is known, and tells the incoming seafarer the same thing at the same time.

What happens when a flight is missed?

A missed flight is handled by the agent, not by the seafarer alone. The first call is to the manning office or the agent named in the travel documents, and the second is to the airline. The office decides whether to rebook on the next available flight to the same port or to route the seafarer to a different joining port.

A missed connection caused by the airline is the airline's problem, and the rebooking is normally free. A missed flight caused by a late arrival at the airport, a visa problem or a missed check-in is the seafarer's problem, and the cost of the new ticket may be deducted or claimed back depending on the agreement. This is why the office builds a margin into the itinerary: a connection of ninety minutes between two terminals is not a margin, it is a hope.

Where the delay makes the original joining port impossible, the office looks for the next port on the ship's schedule. That may be in another country, which means another visa, and the visa is the item that decides whether the new plan works.

The documents that decide the date

The seaman's book, the visa and the medical certificate are the three documents that most often move a joining date. A seaman's book is issued by the flag state or the state of the seafarer's nationality, and its renewal takes time. A visa appointment is not always available when the office wants it. A medical certificate has an expiry date, and a certificate that expires during the contract is a problem at the next port.

The office keeps copies. The seafarer keeps originals on his person, never in the checked bag. A passport in a suitcase that has gone to another city is a joining date that has gone with it.

What the agreement should say

Read the travel clause before signing. It should name who books, who pays, the class of ticket, the point at which the company's responsibility starts and ends, the reimbursement ceiling and the deadline for receipts, and the treatment of a delay. If the clause is silent on delay, ask. A silent clause is settled later by whoever has the stronger position, and that is rarely the seafarer at an airport at two in the morning.

Sources and method

The rules on seafarers' documents and on repatriation are set out in the ILO Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, whose text is published by the International Labour Organization at https://www.ilo.org. National maritime administrations publish the requirements for seaman's books and for crew visas in their own countries. The employment agreement remains the document that decides the individual case.