How Long Does a Seafarer's Voyage Last, and What Leave Applies

The core document is the seafarer's employment contract, known internationally as the Seafarer's Employment Agreement (SEA). It sets out the position, the ship or type of ships, the rate of pay, the length of service and the terms of termination.

The term in the contract is whatever the shipowner and the seafarer agreed on, not something the rules prescribe. The convention explicitly permits agreements with no fixed end date. A claim like "the average seafarer's contract runs X months," made without citing a specific study, means nothing: the spread between a rating on a bulk carrier and an officer on a cruise ship is enormous.

What actually shapes voyage length:

• ship type and trade route: short coastal runs and deep-sea voyages work differently;
• rank: officers' contracts tend to run shorter on average than ratings';
• shipowner policy and the terms of a collective bargaining agreement, where the ship is covered by one;
• seasonality on certain fleets, cruise and fishing in particular.

This is where the one hard limit sits.

The Maritime Labour Convention (MLC 2006), in Standard A2.5, requires the flag state to set a maximum period of shipboard service after which a seafarer gains the right to repatriation, with that period required to be less than 12 months.

That is where the well-known "11-month limit" comes from. The logic works like this: add the paid-leave entitlement (at least 2.5 calendar days per month worked) to the requirement to repatriate before the 12-month mark, and the result is roughly eleven months of continuous service. The arithmetic is rough, and flag state administrations read it differently. Some registries treat repatriation as an unconditional right; others point out that the 11-month figure from simple subtraction doesn't hold up, since 11 months worked accrue 27.5 days of leave, not 30.

Three things follow from this.

The right to repatriation belongs to the seafarer. It is not an obligation on the shipowner to send him off the ship. Some administrations allow a seafarer to extend his period of service voluntarily.

The enforcement threshold differs from the rule itself. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority, for instance, treats time on board beyond 13 months as a breach: that is an inspection trigger, not a permitted duration.

Contract length and time served on board are two different things. A contract can run longer than that; the limit concerns continuous presence on the ship.

A working day at sea is not counted in eight-hour shifts. The classic deck schedule is four hours on watch, eight hours off, two watches a day, plus ship's work outside watchkeeping hours.

Ships with a small crew sometimes run six-on-six-off: two six-hour watches a day. It's harder: rest periods are shorter and go almost entirely to sleep, and it's on these ships that port state control most often raises questions about the rest-hour records.

The rest-hour limits are strict, and they are the same in two instruments: MLC 2006 and the STCW Code, section A-VIII/1. The flag state chooses one of two ways to record compliance:

• maximum hours of work: no more than 14 hours in any 24-hour period and no more than 72 hours in any 7 days;
• minimum hours of rest: no less than 10 hours in any 24-hour period and no less than 77 hours in any 7 days.

Rest may be split into no more than two periods, one of which must be at least six hours long. The interval between two consecutive rest periods cannot exceed 14 hours.

There are exceptions. The weekly rest minimum can be reduced from 77 to 70 hours for up to two consecutive weeks. Exceptions cannot cover more than two 24-hour periods in any seven days. In an emergency, during drills, or under special operational circumstances, the rest regime is not followed, but compensatory rest is owed afterward.

Records are kept in the ship's tables of hours of work and rest, and this is one of the most common items flagged in port state control deficiencies.

Paid annual leave accrues at no less than 2.5 calendar days per month of employment. For a full year, that's a minimum of 30 days. The convention prohibits any agreement to waive the minimum leave, except in cases specifically permitted by the competent authority.

Two different things are easy to confuse. Paid leave is a convention standard. The gap between contracts is what actually happens between two voyages, and it depends on the arrangement with the crewing agency and on how quickly the next ship comes up. No public statistics exist on the typical length of the gap between contracts for Ukrainian seafarers: the figures that circulate on forums are unconfirmed.

The gap between contracts is when a seafarer renews his paperwork. Training certificates have a limited period of validity, and starting a week before applying to a crewing agency is too late: a course group and the issuing of a certificate both take time. The layer that expires most often is the basic one: basic safety training, survival craft and life rafts, fire fighting. The full range of courses by area is in the catalogue: courses for seafarers.

An extension is documented as an addendum to the employment contract. A verbal understanding with the master or a message from the crewing agency is not documentation. If a dispute is examined, the signed paperwork is what counts.

There's a separate case where the right to extend service is written into the contract itself. Some agreements include a clause allowing the shipowner to extend service by up to a month, within the maximum period of service, without asking for separate consent. That clause is read before signing, not at the end of the voyage.

The reason for a delayed crew change is usually logistics, not bad faith: no relief crew at the port of call, flights that don't connect, the ship pulled off its route for a new charter. The practical takeaway is one thing: the change date gets confirmed as it approaches rather than treated as settled, and which certificates might expire on board gets checked ahead of time.

Repatriation is returning a seafarer home at the shipowner's expense. It is not triggered by the end of a contract alone: it also arises in the event of illness or injury, shipwreck, the shipowner's insolvency, the sale of the ship, and a number of other cases. Shifting repatriation costs onto the seafarer is prohibited, except where he has seriously breached his duties.

One more point on certificate expiry at the end of a long voyage. If the contract is extended, some certificates can lapse while still on board, and that becomes a problem at the next hiring. A breakdown of which documents a seafarer holds and how their validity works: seafarer certificates. The list of what needs renewing ashore is usually drawn up before signing off.

MLC 2006 treats access to communications on board as a welfare condition, not a perk. The shipowner provides reasonable access to communication facilities, and any charge for them, if there is one, must be reasonable in amount.

In practice, internet quality depends on how the ship is equipped and where it operates. The difference between a modern ship with a satellite link and older tonnage in a remote area is a real one. It's a question seafarers raise with the crewing agency before signing, not after sailing.