MUMBAI, June 2 -- For many nights, the city lights shone on one side and the vast sea hummed on the other, but the seafarers could go in neither direction. The young men, who survived debilitating loneliness for months aboard an abandoned vessel docked at the Mumbai Port Authority (MbPA), could finally sign off only on May 11, after a Bombay High Court order. Gurusewak Singh Bajwa, 21, a native of Uttarakhand, who spent six months on board MV Sencer 1 doing rotational shifts with four others, told HT that there was nothing to do except ensuring that no unauthorised person boarded the ship. "There were just two of us on board during a shift. It gets harder, more mentally than physically, after the first couple of months," he said. Bajwa said they were unable to get sleep on the ship. "The heat was also getting to us," he said. "Thankfully, since the city is near, we had internet connectivity and could at least communicate with our families or watch something on our phone." Videos shared by the seamen with the National Union of Seafarers of India (NUSI) showed a rundown kitchen strewn with supplies, a stack of full garbage bags and a heap of uncleared garbage. The Zanzibar-flagged MV Sencer 1 was a cargo vessel with a Turkish owner. In 2025, it was abandoned due to a legal dispute with a service supplier, and arrested by the court and placed in the custody of the Mumbai sheriff. In its June 25, 2025 order, the court had asked the sheriff's office to auction the vessel that had been moved to sheltered waters at the Mumbai Port Authority. After its Indonesian crew was repatriated on June 28, 2025 following a court order, the NUSI had assured the court that it would provide a replacement crew if the latter's expenses were treated as sheriff's expenses and "payable as first priority of the sale proceeds of the vessel". V R Maritime was appointed as the manning agent for the ship. Suraj Kumar, 28, a native of UP, who was also deployed on the vessel for six months with Bajwa, told HT that he had started to feel depressed. "An entire cargo vessel of about 80 metres with only two people on it can get very lonely," he said. "We would sleep on the hatch cover. We were being given food but it was like hotel food. How many days can one eat that?" Bajwa added that there would sometimes be delays in delivery of drinking water. "We would preserve one bottle of water for days until the next one came. Sometimes, I went without a bath for a week or used sea water," he said. Disuse had taken a toll on the vessel and it became increasingly unhygienic, the seafarers said. "The toilets stank and we would go outside whenever possible," said Bajwa. "Not like there was anything to do on the ship. For the first couple of months one can adjust to this, but after that the mind really takes a hit." Bajwa said that Kumar had an upset stomach frequently and had to go ashore for medical reasons. "We were free to go ashore if we needed to, but one person had to stay on board if the other left," said Kumar. "But except for a few times we didn't really go ashore." After the vessel remained docked for over 10 months, NUSI approached the high court in April this year through an interim application filed through advocate Kunal Gaikwad, stating that the crew, which was supposed to man the vessel for only up to four weeks, wanted to disembark. "The crew members are under tremendous psychological pressure since there is no clarity as to when their disembarkation will take place," the NUSI application before the court stated. On May 8, the high court allowed the crew to disembark after Ashish Mehta, the counsel for the directorate-general (DG) of shipping, submitted that it had found another agency that would replace the crew provided by V R Maritime. Meanwhile, the sheriff's report submitted to the court on April 17, had urged the court to consider a third round of auction of MV Spencer 1. It described the crew's plight aboard the vessel as a "life and death situation". When the case is heard on June 12 after the court resumes after its summer vacation, the DG, Shipping, too will have to assist the court in determining the fate of the defunct cargo vessel. While Kumar is in Mumbai pursuing a training course, Bajwa is now in his hometown awaiting deployment on a trading vessel. "I am just grateful that I could sign off from that vessel," he said....