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Bishop Declan Lang Visits AoS in Bristol

Rt Rev Declan Lang, Bishop of Clifton, visited AoS in the port of Bristol recently in his capacity as Chairman of the International Affairs Department of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales.  He was hosted by our National Director, Martin Foley.  During the visit Bishop Lang was given short presentations on the work of AoS nationally and locally.  He had a further briefing on some of the current issues in the International Shipping Industry.
 
The Bishop paid a visit to the crew of a car carrying ship, Queen Sapphire.  A gathering of 14 Filipino seafarers met with him during a break in their work routine.  There are 21 crew members in the vessel, which had earlier arrived in Portbury Dock after a lengthy passage from Japan with 5,000 cars onboard.  They had encountered stormy weather on part of the journey and were glad to be in port again.  Before going to telephone home and buy essential supplies and enjoy a couple of hours shoretime respite, they were delighted to welcome the Bishop aboard their ship.  They told him about their appreciation of all the supprt they receive from Stella Maris (AoS) during the lengthy periods of time which they spend away from home and families  The men were mostly on 10 month contracts, but one young sailor told the Bishop that he had spent the last two years continually at sea.
 
The visit ended with the Bishop meeting the co-owners of the Bristol Port Co over lunch and being able to exchange experiences from different perspectives.  The port owners have been very supportive of the work of the Seafarers' Centre in the port.

Picture: Bishop Declan with the Filipino crew of a car carrier vessel. 

Fishing Crew of the Athena Cared for by AoS.

Marine firefighting specialists are still assessing the condition of a factory trawler off the coast of Cornwall. The Faroes-registered fishing vessel the Athena caught fire about 230 miles (370km) south west of the Isles of Scilly last Wednesday.

Ann Donnelly AoS chaplain in Falmouth confirms that there were 112 crew onboard, 98 of the crew originally landed at Falmouth docks and have now been transferred to a Plymouth hotel the rest were taken into medical care for smoke inhalation and have now also been released. The nationalities of the crew include Chinese,Russian,Peruvian and Sweedish. Among the crew are 6 Russian women which is an unusually high proportion considering the dominiation of males choosing careers in the seafaring industry.

Both Ann and local AoS volunteers have been visiting the crew there and providing them with clothing and other items they may need (in particular supplying hte ladies with personal toiletries) until they are repatriated or join a sister ship.  Ann Donnelly spoke to one of the ships engineers who reported that all the crew were  dreadfully upset and shocked by the events as the fire was pretty well out of control and is in fact still smouldering! He also said that it had taken at least 48 hours for the crew to calm down since the incident.

The vessel itself is still at sea awaiting a decision as to where they may bring it in closer to the docks as  Falmouth is being considered not deep enough. AoS will continue to support the crew and provid any practical and pastoral care they may need.

Often fishing vessels and their crew are a forgotten area of seafaring however AoS helps fishers working out of many GB ports, especially the centre of the industry in the Scottish ports of Troon, Peterhead & Fraserburgh.  To highlight our increasing work with fishing vessels we recently convened our chaplains for training on the new ILO fishing convention and laid down measures for action in case of emergency or incident.

Follow the highlighted link to read the full BBC News coverage of this incident.

Cruise Chaplaincy is Vital to Help Maintain the Catholic Faith

On Wednesday 22nd September, at Westminster Cathedral, Apostleship of the Sea (AoS) organised an awareness day to promote their cruise chaplaincy programme. Seven priests who will be undertaking cruise chaplaincy over Christmas on P&O cruise ships met together to discuss the benefits of their work and the possible difficulties they will experience whilst at sea, especially over the Christmas period which can be very lonely for seafarers away from family and loved ones.

For cruise chaplains the focus of their work is centred on the crew of these ships, away from home for up to 9 months, working long hours, seven days a week. Often the crew are glad to have an independent 'ear' to share their concerns and also pray and celebrate the sacraments. They also take Mass for passengers and lend a friendly ear to all who sail.

In 2009, AoS provided 174 days of cruise chaplaincy free of charge, the view is to expand this over the next few years. P&O cruise director Neil Oliver was himself present and described the research done surrounding the needs of cruise ship crew and the noted benefit P&O see to having a chaplain on board for both passengers and crew. This combined with the continual growth of people in the UK opting (in 2009 more than 1.5 million) with these numbers expected to continue to grow despite recession, support the need for Apostleship of the Sea to continue to provide cruise chaplains and to further grow their outreach.