Stranded seamen thanked with free Wi-fi , says Shapps

MERCHANT ships stranded in British ports because of the pandemic are to be given free Wi-fi routers so sailors can stay in touch with families, the Transport Secretary has announced.

Grant Shapps revealed the initiative as the UK spearheads efforts to secure an international agreement for seafarers to be recognised as key workers.

The Department for Transport said about 200,000 sailors, including 2,000 British, are stranded away from home due to the patchwork of international travel and quarantine restrictions.

Because many of the mariners’ contracts have expired while they have been stranded, it means that they will have to find a way of making their own way home.

In response, the Government has announced a package of measures to aid sailors whose ships are stuck in UK ports.

It includes providing them with mobile Wi-fi units (Mifi) and giving funding to seafarers’ centres where international crew can take a break from life below deck.

Yesterday, the UK also hosted a global summit on the issue of how Covid-19 has impacted merchant sailors, at which it was agreed to press to have them recognised as key workers by the UN.

Although not a legal status, the recognition will give sailors more recourse to negotiate exemptions from travel restrictions.

Foreign sailors are currently exempt from UK quarantine restrictions and the British Government has already helped repatriate 12,500 stranded on our shores.

In an exclusive article for telegraph. co.uk, Mr Shapps said the mifi units were a “small gesture” to sailors in recognition of the role they had played delivering vital food and medicine to the UK throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

He said: “This great island nation of ours has a proud history of driving progress in the maritime realm. Our seafarers have journeyed to every corner of the world, and we have welcomed those who cross the oceans to visit us here, bringing with them the fruits of far-flung places.

“It is only right that we care for them when they have, through no fault of their own, found themselves becalmed and stranded in our ports. “And we must help them to make the journeys they so long for after these strange and trying months. Back home, to the embrace of those they love.”