Joiners and leavers
Maingate Shipping arranges crew changes at Tanger Med for owners, managers and crewing agencies: immigration formalities, airport meet and transfer through Tangier Ibn Battouta 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.
Crew change at Tanger Med is a routine movement: the airport is Tangier Ibn Battouta Airport, and the port accepts crew changes at berth and by launch at the anchorage. What decides whether the change goes smoothly is the file: passports, seaman's books, the crew list, the agent's letter of guarantee and the visa position for each nationality, all confirmed before the flight is bought.
Maingate Shipping runs the crew change whether or not we are the cargo agent for the call. Managers who use a charterer's agent for the cargo place the crew movement with us as protecting agent, so that the owner controls the arrangement and the account.
A note on Tanger Med itself: transshipment vessels keep berth windows tight, bunker-only and crew change calls are routine, and the port runs to a schedule that rewards early nomination. The crew plan takes account of it.
Movements at Tanger Med run through Tangier Ibn Battouta Airport. 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.
The file that makes a crew change at Tanger Med 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 Tanger Med 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 Tanger Med 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 Tanger Med: large container ships, car carriers, tankers, ro-ro ferries and cruise ships, in the trades of transshipment containers, new vehicles, petroleum products and general cargo. 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; Tanger Med's working areas are the container terminals, the vehicle terminal serving the Tangier car plants, the hydrocarbon terminal, the bulk quay and the passenger and ro-ro port.
A few working days is comfortable for most nationalities once the ETA is firm; longer where a visa must be obtained in advance. The desk confirms the requirement when the crew list is received.
Yes, by licensed launch in daylight and acceptable weather.
Tangier Ibn Battouta Airport.
Yes. Kenyan officers and ratings are placed through our crewing desk in Mombasa with verified documents, and delivered to the vessel at the port of joining.
Receipts behind every line, a record behind every stoppage, a desk behind every call.
Desks that usually follow a Tanger Med crew change.
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Maingate Shipping Limited · Express Building, Moi Avenue, Mombasa, Kenya · ops@maingateshipping.com · +254 784 622 091