Philippines and Singapore-based crew specialist CF Sharp has established its own Covid-19 testing centre in Manila to speed up its crew change process.

Battling to bring our crews back: in this edition our newsletter, Sharp Sighted, we give details of the team efforts which went into bringing home more than 12,000 crew members from cruise ships all over the world when the industry ground to a halt due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

As the cruise industry remains paralysed by the global effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and with crew repatriations at the forefront of current shipping industry concerns, a Far East crewing specialist is leading the way – bringing home more than 9,000 crew members over the past three months, with some 1,000 others due back soon.

With reports of exhaustion and burn out among the many seafarers trapped at sea, some heartening news has emerged from Manila this week.

Almost 1,000 seafarers stranded on cruise ships around the globe due to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic are in the process of being repatriated to the Philippines.