“We are like hostages,” said a crew member on the JY Ocean, a ship managed by Oceanbulk Maritime SA, a sister company to the Nasdaq-listed Star Bulk Carriers. By August, almost half of the 20-person crew had been on-board for more than a year, sent contract extensions and, they said, instructed by the captain to sign them. “It’s very hard to concentrate on your work when you want to be home,” the crew member said.
Oceanbulk Maritime was founded by Star Bulk’s chief executive officer and several executives hold titles at both companies; the two share an address in the Greek capital of Athens, according to public records. Oceanbulk didn’t respond to a request for comment. But Hamish Norton, who is president of Star Bulk and was Oceanbulk’s chief financial officer as recently as 2019 according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings, said in an email that the JY Ocean crew had been on board too long, “as have the crew on many of our other ships and thousands of ships all over the globe. It is a worldwide humanitarian crisis.”
The ship, he went on, has called in ports where crew changes were prohibited or “grossly discouraged” by government quarantine requirements, advance notice or other procedural obstacles. “Relieving our crews is the highest priority for our management,” said Norton. “It is a safety issue, it is a mental health issue, it is a contractual issue and we wish we could fix it.”
