As we approach International Maritime Organization‘s Day of the Seafarer 2024 (June 25) we should not forget all those that sail with the world’s Grey Funnel line.
While “matelots” play a different seafaring role to their merchant marine cousins – the cruel sea doesn’t differentiate. Seafarers – no matter the ship type – face a constant threat to life and limb. Even more so given ongoing political tensions.
Three seafarers have already been killed and one ship sunk by the Houthis, since November.
It is, In fact, largely only in times of conflict that there is a blurring of the lines between the merchant and naval fleets (and their crews), and there are no finer examples of this than the Atlantic convoys of WWII and the STUFT Ships Taken Up From Trade during the Falklands War.
All told, there were 40 merchant ships totalling 500,000grt requisitioned for UK Government use in 1982. One of them was the Great White Whale, the magnificent Harland & Wolff-built 44,800grt ocean liner SS Canberra, which was requisitioned as a troop carrier and, later, a prison ship.
A particular story that sticks (and one I later followed up on during a failed attempt at writing a book about the Canberra’s role in the conflict) relates to a bid for freedom by some of the PoWs onboard. In the melee one of the ship’s marine engineers was knifed. He survived. The escaping PoWs were caught.
Fortunately, the P&O liner wasn’t heavily targeted by enemy aircraft due to its white livery being mistaken for a hospital ship, but other merchant vessels were badly hit, such as the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships Bedivere and Galahad. (Remember, the RFA is a merchant navy organisation whose ships are crewed by civilian seafarers.)
Other merchant ships and their crews taken up from trade included the liners QEII, and SS Uganda, seven ro-ro ferries, 15 tankers and several cargo ships. (Read the full list here).
While it is hoped that merchant ships will not be taken up from trade any time soon, or indeed ever, the above, hopefully, provides a further example of just how extraordinary our seafarers are.
A life at sea is never, ever plain sailing.
Pictured is RFA Galahad, courtesy Royal Navy