Ships To Sound Horns Again For Seafarers Day 2021

Last year’s first “Ships Sound Their Horns” campaign was incredibly successful in bringing attention to the plight of seafarers resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Sadly, those issues are ongoing and, in many cases, have been exacerbated by the closure of borders and further bans on international travel following the detection of new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

The international maritime community is therefore supporting a repeat of the campaign as a means of reminding legislators and the general public of the importance of international maritime transport to the global economy and well-being. Accordingly, ships are being encouraged to sound their horns at midday in their location on 25th June, the International Day of the Seafarer.

Since the very early days of the pandemic, FONASBA has fully supported, and contributed to, the efforts of the maritime community to raise awareness of the plight of seafarers stranded on vessels beyond the end of their contract period, and of their replacements who are unable to join their vessels, and continues to work with the other associations to bring this about. We are therefore proud to support this action again this year.  A new video has been released by the International Chamber of Shipping to emphasise this message and it can be seen below, or via the link: https://vimeo.com/549298838

The campaign is also being broadcast on social media, using the hashtag: #ShoutOutForSeafarers