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Shore Leave – Squeezing the Balloon
Shore leave has long been a defining and highly valued aspect of seafaring life. However, within the past decade, and particularly in recent years, opportunities for shore leave have declined drastically. Today, it is not unusual for a seafarer on a nine-month contract to go ashore only once or twice, a stark contrast to earlier generations who regarded the chance to see the world as one of the attractions of life at sea.
The loss of shore leave is not just a disappointment; it is also a serious welfare issue. Shore leave has traditionally provided seafarers with vital psychological and social relief – for rest, change of environment, and connection with others, including chaplains and welfare workers. Adding to the loss of these breaks, seafarers face growing pressures from long hours, minimal crew sizes, and heavy workloads. In a sector already associated with stress and isolation, the lack of shore leave is contributing to declining wellbeing, with suicide remaining a troubling cause of death at sea.
The reasons for this erosion of shore leave are complex. Chief among them is the pressure to minimize costs. Port stays are among the most expensive parts of a vessel’s operation, with fees for berthing, cargo handling, and facility use. To reduce costs, time in port has been progressively shortened, even while the demands placed on that time have increased. Beyond loading and unloading cargo, port calls routinely involve refuelling, resupply, inspections, and crew changes. The design of modern ports further reinforces this emphasis on speed and efficiency, leaving little or no time for seafarers to disembark.
Understandably, there have been calls to restore shore leave to reasonable levels. Yet achieving this within the narrow and pressured window of a port call is extremely difficult. Expecting ships to carve out time for crew shore leave while handling all necessary operations is challenging. Nevertheless, this does not mean that the issue should be abandoned. The wellbeing of seafarers remains essential, both for their own sake and for the safe and sustainable functioning of the shipping industry.
Here, it is useful to recall Newton’s Third Law of Motion: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Actions have consequences. Cost savings achieved by reducing time in port produce negative consequences elsewhere—on the human side of shipping. Like the balloon in the picture with this blog, squeezing in one place only causes the need to bulge out elsewhere. Human needs do not disappear when ignored. Squeezed out by pressure in one place, they reappear as fatigue, stress, mental health challenges, or even unsafe operations.
If indeed traditional shore leave truly is increasingly impractical, the challenge is to rethink how seafarers’ needs can be met. Alternative solutions could include arranging for crew to go ashore while ships are at anchorage rather than alongside or revising contract lengths to ensure breaks occur more frequently. While such measures would inevitably carry costs, these might be far lower than the savings being made by shortening time in port. The real question is not whether they can be afforded, but how to balance cost savings with non-negotiable human requirements in a humane industry.
This suggests a broader shift in mindset in relation to shore leave: seafarers cannot be treated like fuel or machinery, maintained only for efficiency. They are human beings whose wellbeing is central to the sustainability of global shipping. If time saved in port translates into significant financial benefits, some of those savings should be reinvested into systems that provide seafarers with equivalent opportunities for rest and connection.
Ensuring seafarers’ welfare is a moral obligation. It is also a practical necessity for the long-term safety and profitability of the industry. Shipping underpins global trade, and the world depends heavily on the men and women who crew vessels. Recognising their humanity—and meeting their fundamental needs for rest, connection, and respite—will be key to building a shipping industry that is not only efficient but also sustainable and humane.
