Organization Aids Foreign Sailors

A deckhand in dungarees stands watch at the loading ramp of the Ukrainian cargo ship Viktor Talalikhin.

The gaping portal in the vessel’s bow exposes its empty hold--a reflection of the ship’s difficulty in finding cargo for its next run, but also a symbol of the hard times that have befallen much of the former Soviet Union’s shipping industry.

Designed as a military-vehicle transport, the rusting 458-foot-long Talalikhin has in recent years been thrust into a losing competition with modern container ships.

Under such conditions, in a profession that traditionally exploits its labor force, who looks out for the welfare of a ship’s crew?

One organization, the Seamen’s Church Institute, has worked for 165 years to do just that.

“It’s our job to find out . . . Are they getting paid and fed properly? Are their living conditions acceptable? How is their health?” explains the Rev. Jean Smith, the institute’s managing director.

On daily visits, chaplains such as Smith meet with crews from dozens of nations aboard vessels putting in at the ports of New York and New Jersey. Last year they made nearly 3,800 calls.

“These people are away from home for a long time. They are isolated by the fact that a crew of 18 may have six different nationalities and languages,” Smith says. “Who they quickly learn that they can turn to is the port chaplain.”

The Episcopal Seamen’s Church Institute, funded largely through endowments, trains chaplains from all over the world, preparing them to be advocates for seafarers in ports from Tanzania to Taiwan.

The organization has also gained a reputation as one of the world’s finest maritime education centers.

Its headquarters, along New York’s waterfront, and a branch located in Paducah, Ky., at the confluence of the Tennessee and Ohio rivers, are equipped with sophisticated ship simulators. Last year more than 1,000 mariners were instructed in advanced piloting and navigation at the two centers.

In addition, the institute recently published a seafarers’ manual, which it plans to distribute in several languages. The handbook outlines the basic rights of seamen, who often find themselves in a confusing web of laws--of their native country, the ship’s nationality and the port of call.

“We are church-founded and hold true to our historical mission of service,” says the Rev. Peter Larom, the institute’s executive director. “Still, we seek new and sometimes unconventional ways to expand our parameters.”

Often the mission means direct involvement with crews and ships’ officers and owners. Take the case of the Talalikhin.

Accompanied by Doug Stevenson, a lawyer and former Coast Guard commander who heads the institute’s legal advocacy wing, Smith recently arranged a meeting with the Ukrainian ship’s captain.

Smith and Stevenson were following up on reports that the crew of 26, including three women, had not been getting paid.

Pay problems are common. A similar complaint last summer brought international attention to the Talalikhin’s sister ship, Znamya Oktyabrya, or Banner of October, as it languished in New York during a sweltering heat wave. Virtually abandoned by the ship’s owner, the unpaid crew ran out of food and needed medical care.

The institute helped draw attention to the Banner of October’s troubles. With help from New York’s Ukrainian immigrant community, the crew received food and medical care, and a portion of the past-due salary was paid before the ship departed in August.

The first meeting with the Talalikhin’s captain was cordial but tense.

At 53, the vessel’s short, stocky master, Alexander Kvyatek, is a 30-year veteran of the shipping business. Gold fillings in his front teeth glinted as he smiled nervously, trying to head off the anticipated questioning.

“In comparison with Banner of October, no problems,” he said in broken English, dismissively waving his arms.

But after the meeting, one crew member privately disclosed that regular salaries had not been paid for seven months.

Although the institute wants to pressure the shipping company to pay, Smith is well aware that crew members who complain risk blacklisting, which can prevent them from finding future work.

“These people have families to support,” she says.

The captain too can be in a difficult position, Stevenson said. “He is the shipping company’s representative, but he is also charged with the crew’s welfare.” Facing chronic pay problems and intolerable conditions, a previous master of the Banner of October hanged himself in his stateroom.

From January 1998 until August 1999, the Seamen’s Church Institute handled more than three dozen complaints involving Ukrainian ships, putting that nation’s merchant fleet near the top of the institute’s case list.