COVID-19 restrictions in China strand merchant sailors aboard ships
The crew of the US-owned Horizon Spirit expect to spend Christmas looking after their 240m long container ship in a southern Chinese shipyard, barred, like thousands of sailors worldwide, from going ashore due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Most of the 22-member crew that left Los Angeles on Oct 22 have been confined to the ship while it is being overhauled in Nantong in eastern China, said its third mate, Harvey Smith. Normally, they would have moved to a hotel to avoid welding, painting and other work.
“Just now, the paint fumes are so bad that we have to wear a mask to the galley to pick up our food,” said Smith, of Wilmington, California, by phone from Nantong, northwest of Shanghai on the Yangtze River.