Vacancies, tenders, announcements and longer-form articles from The Seafarers' Club, Chennai. Subscribe-by-email is on the way; for now, bookmark this page.
Planning a Stay — "Who Can Stay and How to Book." Admission is tied to the community: a valid CDC with sea service for serving seafarers, and an INDOS number, passport and institute letter for trainees, with sponsored guests welcome at the guest tariff and verified at check-in. Booking runs through the online portal, phone and WhatsApp on +91 96770 01014, or bookings.sfc@gmail.com, with a 24-hour desk for in-house guests.
Halls and Community — "More Than a Bed." Two air-conditioned seminar halls, open to maritime institutes, unions and corporates, give the Club a second life as a gathering place for conferences, training and welfare programmes. A year-round calendar, including the annual Seafarers Day in the main hall, makes it a community fixture, not just lodging.
Welfare Mandate — "Not a Luxury." Shore rest for seafarers is an obligation, not a comfort. It is anchored domestically in the Merchant Shipping Act and the Indian Ports Act, and internationally in the ILO Seafarers' Welfare Recommendation of 1970 and the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, to which India is a party. The Club is where those commitments become a clean bed and a hot shower in the principal east-coast port.
Rooms and Tariffs — "Six Ways to Stay." Ninety-five units across six categories: Executive Suite ₹2,100, Family Suite ₹1,575, Deluxe ₹999, Single ₹750, Study Cabin ₹300, and AC Dormitory Bed ₹200, all seafarer rates, with guest rates roughly 1.5 times and confirmed at the desk. The two takeaways are the deliberate spread (a dormitory bed and a captain's suite under one roof) and the twenty study cabins set aside for officers preparing for competency exams, which is welfare thinking rather than h
History — "Eighty Years on the Harbour Front." The Club began in 1945, when the Joint War Charity Committee set up a society for merchant sailors and opened its first premises at First Line Beach, inaugurated by the Governor of Madras on 20 April 1945. Tamil Nadu leased the Rajaji Salai land in 1956, the foundation stone was laid in 1960 by Dr P. Subbaroyan, and the present building, on Port Trust reclaimed land opposite the Reserve Bank of India, was occupied on 1 February 1962.