Nearly 5,000 merchant mariners visit Oakland annually on container ships. The port has taken steps to ensure that they will continue to find temporary respite here from their shipboard duties.

 

Port Commissioners earlier this month extended for five years a rent-free lease with Oakland’s International Maritime Center (IMC). 

 

The lease covers 0.2 acres near the Ben E. Nutter marine terminal. The building is owned by the operators of the International Maritime Center. 

 

The center provides everything from shopping sprees to billiards for visiting mariners whose stays last 24 hours or less.  It also offers spiritual care through the Seafarers Ministry of the Golden Gate, Apostleship of the Sea, Korean Presbyterian, and others.

 

The port agreement keeps the doors open at the center’s 20-year-old office module in Outer Harbor. It also extends a 50-year tradition of providing sailors a landside Oakland get-away.

 

"Our role is to recognize and appreciate the contributions of seafarers and shipping to the Bay Area," IMC Director John Claassen told port commissioners. "We provide a safe space for the seafarers and the port community to just take a break."

 

Mr. Claassen said the center’s 2017 Oakland report card includes:

• 387 visits by clergy or volunteers to ships berthed at port
• 1,500 visiting sailors at the center
• Shopping excursions to East Bay retailers for 766 seafarers. 

 

"We even took a sea captain to Sequoyah Country Club for a round of golf," said Mr. Claassen. He said many sailors, lonely after months at sea, use the center’s facilities to call loved ones back home.