Ardmore Shipping proud to support Day of the Seafarer

Ardmore Shipping is once again happy to show its support for the Day of the Seafarer, celebrated today by the International Maritime Organisation and the global shipping community.

The international shipping industry not only underpins the global economy, but supports every aspect of our lives, whether it is the food and drink that we consume, the raw materials and commodities used to build and heat our homes, or the products and consumables that we rely upon and enjoy. Our way of life would not exist without shipping, and shipping would not exist without its seafarers.

On tens of thousands of vessels around the globe, hundreds of thousands of seafarers are working day and night to ensure the safe passage of their ships and cargoes to their destinations. Their work may be conducted out of the public eye, but the professionalism and commitment with which they fulfill their roles should demand our respect and our appreciation.

At Ardmore Shipping, we fully understand how much we rely upon our seafarers, not least because many of our management team served at sea for many years before coming ashore, so we understand what we ask of our seafarers and what it takes to do their job.  When we started to build our fleet four years ago, the first vessel to enter into service with Ardmore Shipping was named the Ardmore Seafarer, in honour of Ardmore’s seafarers and in recognition of 2010 as the IMO Year of the Seafarer.  Today, we have over 400 seafarers serving on our fleet of eleven vessels, which will rise to over 800 seafarers when our newbuild fleet is fully delivered.

Our seafarers are pivotal to the business we are building and the service that we deliver to our customers.  At any one time, they are responsible for the safe transport of up to 40 million litres of oil and chemical cargo across the Ardmore fleet.  In doing so, they also take on the responsibility of protecting the marine environment, coastal communities and other vessels from the risks involved.  Our seafarers perform this role with impeccable skill and dedication, day in, day out.

Here at Ardmore Shipping, we have an ethos and an operating framework that informs every aspect of who we are and how we operate as a business.  We call this the ‘Ardmore Standard’ and it rests upon our core values of professionalism, integrity and respect.  Our seafarers embody these values and we, in turn, endeavour to reciprocate.  Together with our technical managers, Thome Ship Management and Univan Ship Management, we are entrusted with their safety and wellbeing and we work hard to ensure that all of our seafarers can enjoy a happy and fulfilling career.

So, on the Day of the Seafarer, we would like to say ‘thank you,’ not only to every one of the seafarers on the Ardmore fleet, but also to everyone in the worldwide seafaring community.

You can also show your support by saying #thankyouseafarers on Twitter or Facebook, by tweeting your answer to the sentence ‘Seafarers brought me…’ with one thing that came by sea that you can’t live without, or by posting your answer on the IMO’s ‘virtual wall’ at http://dayoftheseafarer2014.imo.org/.