Is it still possible to work ones passage on a container ship?
One cannot rule out some short of special situation where it might be possible, but almost always the answer will be not possible. Reasons being that except for protected and special trades, crewmembers on nearly all commercial vessels are from developing nations and many owners outsource crewing to ship management companies that hire trained cadets from places like the Phillipines, Ukraine, India, etc. etc. There are some situations where, through connections it can be possible to be signed on as a crew member (which the owner does for to protect his liability) and then paying a very low per diem rate e.g. USD 12/day. I looked into trying to sail from Antwerp to Casablanca several years ago-but I knew the owner’s agent in Antwerp. If you want to turn over all the stones, there are reefer vessels (carrying fruit or meat) that are loading in NZ this time of year headed to Europe and N. America. Container vessels very difficult because of few direct sailings to UK/N.Europe without transs
