In the UK the Maritime Charities Group (MCG), Trinity House, Nautilus Slater Fund and the Merchant Navy Welfare Board have announced the extension of the MCG Retraining and Redundancy Bursary Fund until the end of this year.

This fund, which is administered by The Marine Society on behalf of MCG, provides extra cash for training and refresher courses and is aimed at merchant seafarers who’ve lost work due to Covid-19 and want to stay in the industry. Forty-eight applications have been approved since the fund was launched last November and over £20,000 awarded in grants and it is understood that another £20,000 remains available.

Chair of MCG, Commander Graham Hockley (pictured) explained: ‘The fund was due to close at the beginning of May but with furlough coming to an end in September and many jobs under threat, the need for this kind of support hasn’t gone away. With no government funding available for seafarer retraining, it makes sense to extend the scheme.’