About Maingate Shipping
Maingate Shipping Limited is a Kenyan ship agency, crew management and ship brokerage company with its office at Express Building on Moi Avenue in Mombasa, a short drive from Kilindini Harbour and Moi International Airport. Since 2020 the company has attended vessels at Mombasa and Lamu with its own boarding officers, placed and managed Kenyan seafarers for owners at home and abroad, fixed the tonnage that moves East Africa's cargoes, and coordinated port calls across Africa through an agency line run from this one desk.
Maingate Shipping Limited carries out all types of ship agency, husbandry and protecting agency work at Mombasa Port and Lamu Port, Kenya, for owners, charterers, managers, traders, lines, clubs and fleets, and works from Mombasa the way the port itself works: around the clock, on the tide table, with the receiver's paperwork cleared before the vessel arrives.
On the agency side: port formalities and berth booking, proforma and final disbursement accounts, boarding officers at arrival, during operations and at sailing, statements of facts kept to a laytime standard, crew changes and shore passes, bunker calls at berth and by ship-to-ship transfer at the anchorage, spares in transit, cash to master, provisions, water and waste, surveyor and P&I coordination, and off-port-limits services for vessels passing the Kenyan coast.
On the crewing side: recruitment and placement of Kenyan officers, ratings and cadets for bulk, tanker, offshore, fishing and cruise tonnage, document verification and flag endorsements, medicals, travel and visas, repatriation and medical cases, and crew management for fleets that employ East African seafarers.
On the brokerage side: dry bulk, tanker and project cargo chartering for East African cargoes, contracts of affreightment for repeat shipments, sale and purchase of the tugs, coastal vessels, bulk carriers and offshore craft that work African waters, and post-fixture laytime and demurrage support.
Across Africa: the Mombasa desk coordinates port calls at more than sixty African ports through partner agents who attend under Maingate's instruction, on one proforma DA format, one reporting style and one contact for the master and one for the principal. The company is honest about how this works: our own staff attend in Kenya; elsewhere, a licensed local agent attends and Maingate is responsible to the principal for the service.
Easy to work with. Tell the desk the vessel, the ETA and what the call is for, and a proforma disbursement account comes back with a checklist. Everything is agreed in writing before it is performed, charged at cost with the receipt in the account, and reported while it is happening rather than after.
Six desks in one office, so that a principal trading Africa can bring the whole voyage to one contact.
Maingate Shipping was established in Mombasa in 2020 to do a plain thing well: answer the master's call and the owner's email with the same speed, and put every service in writing before it is performed. Ship agency at Kilindini is the core of the company; crew management, crewing and brokerage sit beside it because the same owners, managers and traders who nominate an agent need all three.
The company still runs from one office, and that is deliberate: one desk that knows every file, rather than a network of offices that pass a vessel between them.
In Kenya, Maingate's own boarding officers attend every call at Mombasa, and staff travel to Lamu for calls there. Elsewhere in Africa the company works as a coordinating agent: for each port a licensed local agent is appointed under a written sub-agency agreement, attends the call under Maingate's instruction and reports in Maingate's format, and the Mombasa desk issues the proforma DA, funds the call, tracks it daily and closes the account.
The principal deals with one desk and one account across the itinerary; the partner keeps its own name and licence at the port. This is the model the international hub agencies run, and every desk on this site describes it as it is.
A boarding officer's job is to be at the gangway when the vessel arrives, to write down what happens while it happens, and to make the shore side move when the ship needs it to. Maingate's officers hold port passes for every terminal at Mombasa, know the pilots, the stevedore foremen and the customs officers by name, and carry the vessel's file with them.
Behind them sits the operations desk that answers the master at any hour and the principal by email, the crewing desk that moves seafarers through Moi International Airport and Nairobi, and the accounts desk that turns receipts into a final DA within the agreed days.
A Kenyan ship agency, crew management and ship brokerage company established in Mombasa in 2020, with its office at Express Building on Moi Avenue, attending vessels at Mombasa and Lamu with its own staff and coordinating port calls across Africa through partner agents under its instruction.
At Mombasa, where the office and the boarding officers are, and at Lamu, where staff travel for each call. At every other African port a licensed local agent attends under Maingate's instruction and Maingate is responsible to the principal.
Send the vessel's particulars, ETA, port, cargo or purpose and the principal's details to ops@maingateshipping.com or by WhatsApp to +254 784 622 091; a proforma DA and a checklist follow.
Yes. Kenyan officers, ratings and cadets are recruited, documented and placed through the Mombasa crewing desk for owners at home and abroad.
No. The company acts as agent and broker; it does not sell bunkers and does not take positions in clients' cargoes.
One instruction, one account, one contact for the master and one for the principal.
The desks that make up the company.
Also on maingateshipping.com: Ship agency at Mombasa · Ship agency and charter brokers · Ship brokerage · About Maingate · Contact
Maingate Shipping Limited · Express Building, Moi Avenue, Mombasa, Kenya · ops@maingateshipping.com · +254 784 622 091