This year early May, I was fortunate to meet the young, dynamic and stunning gentleman – Salvatore d’Amico, Group Fleet Management Department, d’Amico Group – who is one of the third-generation members of the d’Amico family in Mumbai. From 14 years ago that I last met him, there seems to be very little change; except for the salt and pepper look and lean physique. He is still jovial, enthusiastic, and passionate about the wellbeing of the seafarers, manning management and their families.

His visit to India was to personally express his gratitude and appreciate the Indian seafarers and manning management for their abiding dedication throughout the C-19 pandemic infused lockdown.

Being a fervent believer to stay connected with his team at all time, he has a functional office even in his boat. One can say that though, he is happily married for over 10 years to a beautiful wife and two adorable children, he is equally committed to his work.

In an exclusive conversation with Ms Delphine Estibeiro of Marex Media, Salvatore shares his thoughts on the challenges faced, preparedness for future pandemic, new developments and his message to seafarers and their families.

On challenges…

The pandemic has definitely been a very challenging period for any shipowner; some have managed to cope better and some have managed to cope worse. But thanks to my team we managed to never stop any vessel for one single day.

When I say my team I don’t mean my shore team I mean both my shore team and seafarers, they have been very supportive and they have understood the situation clearly. The key for our success in managing the pandemic on board is thanks to our manning management that managed to write procedures which were very strict. At a certain point I was thinking we were going a little bit above than what was necessary. But with strict guidelines, the cases that we had on board were really very few. And I am grateful to our seafarers because they strictly followed what we asked them to do. They understood that it was necessary, and they fully followed our requirements. For this I really wish to thank our seafarers.

For the seafarers their main concern was the situation back home, which at times was very difficult. We understood that one of the main problems for our seafarers was to have as much communication as possible with their families. So, we ensured that they were provided with that extra internet connectivity when required.

I literally have to thank the team here in Mumbai because they were the one together with our team in Genoa who were managing during the worst day of the pandemic in order for us to be able to cope with the disastrous situation which was holding out day after day.

On preparedness for future pandemic…

We have always seen the fact of using different nationalities as a non-optimal way of doing our business in the sense that we have always said that we need to have only one nationality on board. What has saved us in a certain prospect during the pandemic is the fact of having different nationalities. As we could do trade based on the country we were close at that time, what does this means? This means that we replaced the seafarers in a certain country with seafarers of another nationality, according to the guidelines of that country. Without reducing our occupancy we replaced Indian seafarers with Filipinos in areas where they were banned from entering and vice versa. In any case India is still our biggest hub.

My main concern today is what is happening between Russia and Ukraine without entering the technicalities of the war. Obviously we are very sorry for the people losing life I mean whenever someone is dying is always a disaster. But my main concern is the fact that Ukrainian and Russia were putting in particular on the higher ranks on the ships. And today they are not able to do this anymore, because Ukrainians cannot leave Ukraine and Russians are seen as devil’s wherever they go in the world. So the final result of this will create pressure on the vessels on one side and I’m very sorry to say that it will create pressure on the other side by increasing the poverty of families whose earning members cannot work anymore. So this is something which today I think that as a ship owner we need to carefully look into.

On new developments…

I think the first time I did this interview we were 30 people, today we are 80 people and I can see the number going easily to 100 and beyond soon. We are moving several of our departments to Mumbai. We are managing to build our ship management activity where we give our seafarers’ possibility to work ashore and this for us is a giant step forward.  For us, training is very important and by taking this step, we ensure that the seafarers receive the right input from our Marine and Technical Teams from the local Office itself which is of great advantage. We will see more and more seafarers in particular the officers who will spend probably 10-12 years onboard and then will come to work onshore in the future. Today, I think, the main important task for a ship owner is not only to man his vessel but to groom the seafarers to be part of their team ashore.

His Message…

I think there are a lot of messages that I wish to give to them. The most important are first of all to the family of our seafarers. I wish to really thank them for the support they have given to the seafarers throughout the pandemic. It is incredible what they have done in such situation.

The second thing, we are a growing company, we are always looking for seafarers, if we could have more seafarers joining our group, we will probably do more. We need seafarers who have the right attitude to join a company like ours, I would be very happy to have them on board because this is very important for us.

I would like to encourage the seafarers to seek psychological support whenever the need arises. It is okay to seek help when you are down, because if you are not strong enough to reach out to people who can give you the necessary guidance, you might end up doing stupid stuff.  So do not hesitate to approach the management who is there to help you. This is a very important point that needs to be passed through all our seafarers.

Marex Media