2010 Year of the Seafarer - do we know or care?

Shipping - it's just there, in the background, doing a job. It ensures that all the goods and products we need are at our fingertips as and when we need them - and it's not just consumables...it's commodities, fuel and transport.

Let's be honest we only really notice shipping or hear about it in the media when, from time to time, an accident, act of piracy or environmental disaster occurs.

But the huge range of maritime related activities that support and sustain the global economy, as we know it, are dependent on a highly specialised and skilled workforce of 1.5 million seafarers around the world.

Trying to address the balance and shine a light on the contribution to society made by seafarers is what 2010 Year of the Seafarer is all about - and yet how many of us have stopped to think about the people that work to bring in the fuel to heat our homes this winter and the conditions in which they work to give us these comforts.

Onboard a historic ship, such as the 1890 cargo steamship SS Robin, the crews quarters, galley and heads (toilets) are sparse - as you would expect them to be on a Victorian steamship. A crew of up to 11 would be at sea in these conditions for months....tramping from port to port and surviving on the bare minimum.

Modern ships are more technologically advanced and, in comparison, hugely more comfortable workplaces. Accommodation spaces will be clean and the food good - increasingly crew members are able to access the internet and maintain communications with friends and family whilst away from home.

It's by no means an easy way of life - elements of seafaring work include hazards and danger, isolation and stressful, physical work.  To not be able to return to your friends and family every night, to be constantly immersed in the place where you work, whether on or off duty, and increasingly exposed to threats from pirate attacks, delays by adverse weather or detention in port and denial of shore leave all contribute to the difficulties of a seafarer's life.

The theme of this year's World Maritime Day was chosen to provide an opportunity for the maritime community to pay tribute to the seafarer and to recognise the contribution to society and to the economy but we should all be thankful that this invisible and in many ways indispensible force works so hard to support our way of life.

Source [International Maritime Organisation]