Crew logistics
Maingate Shipping arranges crew changes at Abidjan for owners, managers and crewing agencies: immigration formalities, airport meet and transfer through Félix-Houphouët-Boigny International Airport, launches where the vessel lies at anchor, and hotels when flights and vessels do not line up. Our partner agent at the port attends the movement under Maingate's instruction; the Mombasa desk plans and reports.
For vessels calling Abidjan, the crew change is planned before the cargo is: flights are held until the ETA is firm, immigration is pre-notified, and the joining crew are met at Félix-Houphouët-Boigny International Airport and taken to the gangway or the launch. Off-port-limits changes for vessels in transit are done the same way, without the vessel entering the port.
The port's geography matters: the Ébrié lagoon in Côte d'Ivoire, entered through the Vridi canal. So does the fact that the canal transit and the lagoon berths give the port a pilotage sequence of its own, and cocoa's mid-crop and main-crop seasons set the export calendar.
Every movement is confirmed in writing before the seafarer travels and reported promptly it happens.
Félix-Houphouët-Boigny International Airport is the door for crew at Abidjan. The desk's driver waits at arrivals with the vessel's name, walks the joiners through immigration on the pre-notification already filed, and brings them to the port gate or the launch. For leavers, the same driver collects them at the gangway and sees them through immigration and check-in.
Nobody buys a ticket until the vessel's schedule is firm; the desk holds options and rebooks when the ETA moves, which it usually does.
The file that makes a crew change at Abidjan work: passports valid for the period immigration requires, seaman's books or seafarer identity documents, the vessel's crew list with the joiners and leavers marked, the letter of guarantee from the agent, and the visa position for each nationality confirmed with immigration for this movement, not assumed from the last one.
The desk files the notification before the flight lands so that the seafarer is expected at the desk rather than explained at it.
Berth changes at Abidjan are simple: the agent's vehicle, the gate pass, the gangway. Anchorage changes need a launch, daylight, a sea state the launch operator accepts and a pilot ladder rigged to the master's satisfaction. The desk books the launch against the tide and the weather and tells the master the time it will be alongside.
When the aircraft and the launch cannot meet, a hotel room near the port bridges the gap and the movement runs at first light. Off-port-limits crew changes for vessels in transit are done outside the port, with the vessel slowing to take the launch alongside and resuming passage within a couple of hours.
A seafarer landed sick at Abidjan is taken to hospital by the desk's representative, admitted against the owner's or the club's guarantee, and reported on daily until discharged or repatriated with a fit-to-fly certificate and, where required, a medical escort. The replacement is arranged from the Kenyan pool while the case runs.
Times, names and costs go to the owner promptly; receipts follow with the account.
Who changes crew at Abidjan: container ships, bulk carriers, tankers, reefer vessels and fishing vessels, in the trades of cocoa, coffee, cashew, rubber, palm oil and bananas outbound, with rice, wheat, clinker and fuel inbound. Their rotations differ, so the desk asks the manager for the rotation calendar and works from it, rather than treating every movement as a surprise.
Berth or anchorage decides the last mile; Abidjan's working areas are the two container terminals, the general cargo and bulk berths, the refinery jetty, the fruit terminal and the fishing port.
The crew list marked with joiners and leavers, valid passports, seaman's books or seafarer identity documents, the agent's letter of guarantee and, for some nationalities, a visa obtained in advance or pre-notified for arrival.
Yes, by launch in daylight when the sea state allows.
Through Félix-Houphouët-Boigny International Airport, with the desk meeting joiners on arrival and seeing leavers through immigration and check-in.
The desk books a hotel near the port, keeps the crew informed, and moves them to the vessel as soon as she is alongside or at anchor.
One instruction, one account, one contact for the master and one for the principal.
Crew work sits with port agency and crew management on the same desk.
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