“You lose a lot of predictability because of Covid,” said V Group ship management ceo Bjoern Sprotte. The rapid and unpredictable changes at ports have made crew change planning a big challenge for both shore staff and seafarers and the situation has not really improved in many regions, he noted.

In this sense the inability of the industry to be able to address important issues with one voice has been a failing. “Shipping needs an urgent reflection on how to have a stronger voice and how we can sustain that visibility and energy to make sure seafarers have higher visibility in the future,” said Wright.

Another shortcoming has been the limited ability to deal with the issue of how families can cope with the situation while their loved ones are stuck out at sea. Where seafarers have not had access to contact with their families it has been difficult for family members and more work needs to be done to address this, said Wright.

Noting that these sorts of issues did not exist before Covid because seatime was relatively fixed and predictable, O’Neil said the most important thing the industry has realised from the Covid crisis was that the people around us are the most important thing, and this represents a fundamental shift in thinking.

However, what it has also shown up is the industry’s lack of proper human resource management and how far behind other industries it is in this respect. While some efforts have been made previously, these have slipped.

“This could be a great moment for the development of our people but we need to make sure the lessons learnt from the pandemic don’t get lost,” concluded Wright.