An outbreak of severe gastro left multiple crew members ill on the new Spirit of Tasmania V’s delivery voyage from Scotland to Australia this year. A union says engineers who worked longer hours without extra staff should be paid an additional allowance, ABC News reported.

The ship left Scotland in early March on a seven-week voyage to Australia. According to a dispute resolution application filed in the Fair Work Commission by the Australian Institute of Marine and Power Engineers (AIMPE), fresh food was taken on board when the ship reached Cape Town in early April.

“A severe illness, shigella, spread through the vessel following contaminated food being taken on in South Africa,” the application states.

By the time the ship reached Mauritius, “the majority of the crew” had fallen ill, said the AIMPE’s Nathan Niven, who was not on the vessel but is representing some of those who were. He said one crew member was hospitalised for several days in Mauritius and another was hospitalised in Australia. With four of the six engineers among those bedridden, the ship continued towards Fremantle with limited staff.

“The effect on the engineers was that only one fit engineer was available to maintain watches at a time instead of two, between 8 April and 17 April,” the application states.

Mr Niven said engineers who worked alone on 12-hour shifts, instead of with a colleague on eight-hour shifts, were entitled to a “shorthanded” allowance for 10 days. He said the claim amounted to between $10,000 and $20,000.

“It would be like [being] seasick times 10, which is very unpleasant,” he said of the illness.

According to the AIMPE’s application, the engineers’ employer, ASP Ships Group, rejected the request for a shorthanded allowance. The AIMPE said ASP Ships Group had denied the claim “on advice from [ship operator] TT-Line”, which said the ship was classified as an “Unmanned Machinery Space” vessel, a ship with automated monitoring that does not need crew to keep a constant physical watch in the engine room. The AIMPE says that assertion is incorrect.

In a statement to the ABC, ASP Ships Group confirmed that crew members were ill while the ship was berthed in Mauritius.

“They received appropriate medical care and, having sufficient and appropriate personnel fit for the safe operation of the vessel, the decision was taken to continue the voyage to Australia,” it said.

The company said it could not comment further because the matter was before the Fair Work Commission. The matter is listed for a conference hearing in Melbourne on October 23.

TT-Line’s two new ferries, Spirit IV and Spirit V, are scheduled to begin carrying passengers and freight between Devonport and Geelong from October 31.

Correction, 3 November 2026: An earlier version of this story described ASP Ships Group as the operator of Spirit of Tasmania V. ASP Ships Group employs the engineers; the ship’s operator is TT-Line. The earlier version also said the new ferries would sail between Devonport and Melbourne, but the route is Devonport to Geelong. A description of what the Fair Work hearing would consider, which was not in our source, has been removed.