Crew movements
Maingate Shipping arranges crew changes at Beira for owners, managers and crewing agencies: immigration formalities, airport meet and transfer through Beira Airport, with connections through Maputo and Johannesburg, 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.
Seafarers join and leave at Beira through Beira Airport, with connections through Maputo and Johannesburg, and the movement is workable when it is planned ahead. Maingate Shipping handles the immigration formalities, the airport, the transfer to the gangway and the hotel if the timings do not meet, and reports every movement to the owner with times and costs.
Beira is the Pungwe river estuary on Mozambique's central coast, reached through a dredged and tide-dependent channel, and draft depends on the tide and the state of dredging, so arrival drafts and berthing windows are agreed early and revisited before the vessel commits; the crew plan is built with that in mind, so that a launch is not booked into a swell or a flight into a berth window that will not hold.
Crewing agencies, technical managers and owners under charter all place crew movements here; the desk acts for whoever instructs it and keeps that party's account separate.
Movements at Beira run through Beira Airport, with connections through Maputo and Johannesburg. Joiners are met at the aircraft door where the airport allows it and at arrivals where it does not, and are through immigration and on the road without delay when the file was filed in advance. Leavers go the other way with their sign-off papers in hand.
Flight bookings track the vessel, not the other way round: options are held and changed as the ETA firms up, and the owner is told the cost of each change.
Every nationality on the crew list is checked against the current rules at Beira before a ticket is bought: who gets a visa on arrival, who needs one in advance, who transits on the agent's letter of guarantee alone. The crew list, passports and seaman's books are sent to immigration with the letter of guarantee ahead of the movement.
Shore passes are arranged for crew going ashore, and the boarding officer carries the port passes the movement needs.
At berth the movement is a walk from the gate to the gangway. At the anchorage, a licensed launch is booked for daylight and acceptable weather, and the pilot ladder and the vessel's own arrangements are confirmed with the master beforehand. Where a flight lands after the last launch, a hotel near the port is booked and the transfer runs at first light.
Where the vessel is not entering port, the desk advises whether an off-port-limits change is workable at Beira or better made at the next port on the route.
A seafarer landed sick at Beira 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 Beira: bulk carriers, container ships, general cargo ships and product tankers, in the trades of fertilizer, wheat, clinker and fuel inbound, with chrome, ferrochrome, tobacco, sugar and timber outbound. 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; Beira's working areas are the container and general cargo terminals run by the concessionaire, the coal terminal and the fishing harbour.
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.
The desk confirms with the port and the launch operator; where it is not workable the change is planned for the berth or the next port.
Through Beira Airport, with connections through Maputo and Johannesburg, 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.
Nominate Maingate Shipping and the answer comes from Mombasa with a proforma DA attached.
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