Online, 8 October 2026 — “Assets normally receive investment.” With that line, moderator Phrixos Papachristidis of Hellespont Group set the test for ‘People are our greatest asset’ — prove it! The question was not whether shipping values its people. It was whether the industry behaves as if it does.
Over one hour, an owner, a lawyer, a crew trainer, a mental-health campaigner and the youngest voice in most rooms she enters gave a qualified answer. The words are there. The budgets, structures and contracts mostly are not.
The session picked up the people debate Papachristidis moderated at the 1st Mare Forum Germany in Hamburg in August. It continues in November at the 25th Mare Forum Ship Finance conference in Rotterdam.
On the panel: Dan Jespersen (7C Shipping), Antonios Faraklas (Chartworld Shipping), Isabel Grimpe (Grimpe RelationShip Management), Sinem Sen (Alphaliner) and Daniel Jones (NoordenJones).
Watch the full session
Mental health: plaster or cure
Every dollar spent treating mental health returns about four, Papachristidis noted from Jespersen’s preparation. So why are owners reluctant? Jespersen’s answer: shipping is a reactive industry that spends where its competitors spend. Shore staff at large companies are well catered for. Seafarers, in his words, “have been left behind.”
The big operators, Maersk and Hafnia among them, run their own programmes. Yet crews still sit far behind their own shore colleagues. And the rules are moving: mental illness is now named as grounds for repatriation, at the owner’s cost. Charterers, Jespersen predicted, will soon demand mental-health standards the way vetting regimes demand everything else.
“If it doesn’t come from the shipowners, it will come from somewhere else.”
Dan Jespersen, Founder, 7C Shipping
Isabel Grimpe, who trains captains in the short-sea trade, sees two jobs. One is spotting the signs of distress. The other is actively building a work environment that strengthens a crew’s mental resources. The masters she works with are eager to learn real tools.
The gap, she said, is implementation. Psychological safety is “a highly discussed topic, but there’s a lack of how to implement that.” Real change is structural behaviour change: long-term, and a top-management priority rather than a one-day course.
Papachristidis put a number on the stakes: a Yale and ITF survey found about a quarter of seafarers had suffered from depression. Jespersen called what is coming a “perfect storm”: pressure from shore, from families, from new recruits and from charterers, while owners wait for someone else to supply the tools.
The Happy Aras
The sharpest point came from a courtroom. Jespersen had flagged The Happy Aras [2026] EWHC 7 (Admlty), an English Admiralty Court judgment of 12 January 2026. Daniel Jones of NoordenJones walked the panel through it.
A 1990-built bulk carrier grounded off Turkey’s Datça peninsula in March 2023. The owners declared general average for salvage, lightering and transhipment. Cargo’s insurer refused to pay its share of about US$1.27 million, arguing the ship was unseaworthy because the master was incompetent. The court agreed.
Jones traced it to the “golden thread” of the Hague Rules: the carrier’s duty to exercise due diligence to make the ship seaworthy before and at the start of the voyage. Lose that argument and owners can lose their Hague defences and fail to recover general average, with every insurance and financial consequence that follows.
The ruling turned on navigational incompetence, not illness. But two points carry straight over to crew welfare. A valid certificate of competency was not enough to prove due diligence. And on the panel’s reading of judicial comment, physical unfitness or mental-health issues could, in some cases, make a master incompetent too.
Jespersen drew the operational lesson. A check when the captain signs on is not enough; owners need continuous supervision. Jones agreed: due diligence will be examined across training, supervision, rest hours and working hours.
“Providing certificates of competence from the master — the right paperwork — is not enough.”
Daniel Jones, Partner, NoordenJones
Life on board
Antonios Faraklas, managing director of Chartworld Shipping and in the business since 1980, described how far the job has moved. Ships once stayed in port five or ten days; now they turn in 24 hours. Crews sign four- or five-month contracts and may never get ashore. His father’s generation went to sea for three to five years at a stretch.
Shorter contracts and better ship-to-shore links help, including contact with families. But the pressure from charterers, authorities and pirates is, he said, “totally different” from ten or fifteen years ago.
His retention formula is old-fashioned, and he credits it for Chartworld keeping its officers. Many of today’s families have no idea what life at sea means, so the office has to act as their mentor too.
“Show them that their problem is your problem — not only while they are on board, but for their families as well.”
Antonios Faraklas, Managing Director, Chartworld Shipping
Owners who treat crews “as numbers,” he said, are “a very bad example for our industry.”
An audience comment asked why seafarers are still hired as contractors. Jespersen saw both sides. Fixed contracts deny continuity, but they give young people freedom: travel between trips, come back, and “if you don’t do a horrendous job, you’re almost certain to get a new contract.”
The catch, he said, is that a strong family company like Chartworld can offer belonging; many small owners cannot. That needs an answer at industry level, including regulation, not company-by-company training.
The next generation
Sinem Sen of Alphaliner asked her colleagues under 30 what they want from shipping. First, they need to know what it is. Outside the industry, people ask whether shipping means working for Amazon or DHL. Sen is usually the only woman, and the youngest, in the meetings she attends worldwide.
Her colleague’s answer, read out in full: young talent wants “fair pay and a clear path up, flexibility, modern and meaningful work, real responsibility early on with mentoring, and a good team with visible impact, which together matter more than prestige.”
Traditional companies, Sen added, still sell heritage; the younger generation cares about the future. Grimpe heard the same from a young superintendent: purpose, skills and fair pay. The task is to bridge the gap between people eager to learn and a real chance to learn.
Heritage still works where it is lived. Faraklas cited Greek academy figures: about half the students from the seafaring islands of Chios and Oinousses go to sea and stay. At other academies the share drops to about a quarter. Those students came for the money and left when the life proved hard.
Papachristidis pressed the numbers. Ratings are in surplus, yet the industry is short of about 39,000 officers. Why are owners not promoting their own? Faraklas pointed to Chartworld’s cadet programmes in the Philippines, Indonesia and China; Chinese cadets taken on a decade before COVID rose to captain.
Jespersen was blunter. The industry is “controlled by old men, to be honest, me included,” who cannot know what young people think. He would drop the lifetime ladder: here is what you learn in two years, then decide. To bankers leaving the shipping desk he says: “Don’t worry, you’ll be back.”
Would he go to sea at 22 today? “In today’s environment, no, not even a chance.” Nor would he send his daughter. At 25 he was a captain, “being God on board because there was no interaction with the office.” Today a master asks the office before changing course.
“What we had offered to us then is not offered to the youngsters now.”
Dan Jespersen, Founder, 7C Shipping
Diversity
The numbers frame it. At Hellespont, Papachristidis said, about 40% of shoreside staff are women. In the crew pool it is about 1%, roughly the global average according to figures presented at SMM.
Is diversity box-ticking? Without generalising, Sen said, most of the time it is. Women walking into rooms of senior men still meet a look that says: what are you going to tell me about shipping? It is getting better. But the louder the conversation, she argued, the less action follows. “Where is the action?”
Grimpe disagreed that talk means inaction. Some companies already do this well, and they win the recruitment race because people are drawn to their culture. Diversity should be read broadly, across nationalities, religions and cultures, and owned by top management. Her test: bullying and harassment handled properly, not brushed off as something to get over alone.
“Change starts with small steps. Those small steps will spread out, and then we have a transformation.”
Isabel Grimpe, Managing Director, Grimpe RelationShip Management
Faraklas brought the family view. Life at sea means months away, and many partners today are reluctant to accept it. Shipping, he noted, has already moved from the UK to Greece to the East.
Jespersen closed the topic. The industry has not used modern communications to make sea careers fit family life. Until it accepts gender inequality as a real issue, “we will never get the young female officers and ratings out.” Women at home, men out hunting: “an outdated way of thinking.”
Technology versus people
Are academies training officers for real ships or museum pieces? Grimpe hoped not, since that “would be a severe waste of time and money.” In Bremen, she said, the live question is what the curriculum must hold for the ships graduates will actually join.
Faraklas was candid: technology is moving faster than training, and more money goes into it than into the crews who run it. Chartworld operates 75 ships. “Some of them can be called museums, and some of them are more sophisticated. So you need the people for both.”
His example deflated the automation story. Around 2000 Chartworld took over four Norwegian ships built in 1992 to run with seven crew — in their day, he said, they would have been called unmanned. The Norwegian owners had used nine or ten. Chartworld ran them with 17.
Today’s sophisticated ships may sail with 15, he said, but at ten or fifteen years old they will need 19 or 20. The mix is shifting too: more electricians and electronic engineers beside deck officers, with training to match.
An audience question asked whether remote or autonomous ships could ease the officer shortage. Faraklas does not believe in unmanned ocean-going ships “in the foreseeable future.” Building the experienced officers the next fleet needs “cannot happen overnight.”
The pitch
Papachristidis closed with a test. A top graduate has offers from Google, Goldman Sachs and a bulk carrier. Sell them shipping in one sentence.
- Sinem Sen: “80% of globally traded goods by volume are moved by sea, and you can help be part of it.”
- Daniel Jones: read decisions like The Happy Aras, “because each of those decisions has a fascinating story behind it.”
- Isabel Grimpe: “Go and use the great potential that shipping offers for your self-development.”
- Dan Jespersen: “This is an industry that has changed the world, and will continue to change the world.”
- Antonios Faraklas: “I would go with Isabel.”
The moderator’s verdict: every corner of the industry agrees that people matter. The test is whether decisions, budgets and working practices at every level show it, and that has to start at the top.
“The question is not whether people are our greatest asset. It is whether we actually behave as though they are.”
Phrixos Papachristidis, CEO, Hellespont Group
Outtakes
- “Assets normally receive investment.” — Phrixos Papachristidis, Hellespont Group
- “It’s a very reactive industry we live in.” — Dan Jespersen, 7C Shipping
- “Is it a job where you work at Amazon or DHL?” — Sinem Sen, Alphaliner, on how outsiders see shipping
- “What are you going to tell me about shipping?” — Sinem Sen, on the look she gets in senior meeting rooms
- “Controlled by old men, to be honest, me included.” — Dan Jespersen
- “Don’t worry, you’ll be back.” — Dan Jespersen, to bankers leaving the shipping desk
- “Being God on board, because there was no interaction with the office.” — Dan Jespersen, on captaincy at 25
- “Some of them can be called museums.” — Antonios Faraklas, Chartworld Shipping, on his own fleet
- “That would be a severe waste of time and money.” — Isabel Grimpe, on training for museum ships
- “Tell them a story.” — Daniel Jones, NoordenJones, on recruiting maritime lawyers
- “I would go with Isabel.” — Antonios Faraklas, declining to write his own pitch
Action plan
For owners and managers
- Treat crew fitness as due diligence, not welfare. After The Happy Aras, certificates are not proof. Keep evidence of ongoing supervision, training, rest hours and wellbeing support for every master and officer.
- Get ahead of the charterers. Set a company mental-health standard before vetting regimes write one for you.
- Put the tools on board, not on the shelf. Train masters to spot distress and to build crew resilience; measure use on board, not course completions.
- Bring the family into the contract. Fund ship-to-shore and family communication, and give every family a named contact in the office.
- Promote from within. With ratings in surplus and about 39,000 officers missing, fund rating-to-officer pathways and cadet programmes.
- Train for the fleet you actually run. Match training budgets to technology budgets: electrical and electronic skills for new ships, hands-on skills for older ones.
- Handle harassment properly. Clear reporting channels and real consequences on board; report the share of women at sea, not just ashore.
For the industry
- An industry-level floor. Shared welfare, training and belonging standards that small owners can adopt, so crew welfare does not depend on the size of the employer.
- Sell two years, not a lifetime. Recruit on what a newcomer learns in the first contracts, with an open door to leave and come back.
- Fix visibility. Explain shipping to people who think it means Amazon or DHL; pitch the future, not the heritage.
- Responsibility early, with mentoring. Give young officers real decisions sooner, backed by mentors rather than office sign-off on every change.
- Put a number on “people first”. Report people spend against technology spend at board level, so the claim can be checked.
Watch the recording above or on the webinar page. Quotes are from the session recording and lightly edited for clarity.
