BOW WAVE 135

Eastern Edition

news and views on trade, insurance and risk

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Wavy Line	sam@wavyline.com
(c)2002 WavyLine.com	Issue No 135 24 Jun 02
Published free of charge to Readers
Editor: Sam Ignarski
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In this issue:

1. Welcome
2. Guest Column: Strange Connections
3. New Report on China-Taiwan Direct Trade
4. Maritime Security Update
5. Warehousing Check Lists
6. And Finally...

1. Welcome

Our item last week on ex police people working in the P&I field produced a lively response. There are many more than we thought. Patrick Bond of Marine Response Ltd pointed out that "The now retired Hugh Dyer, ex boss of Newcastle P & I is said to have pounded a few beats in his time.
Likewise Peter Jackson, personal injury man at Thomas Millers. Lawyer Ian Gilchrist of Eversheds is another. In my office, my colleague, Kevin Barry, handles personal injury and stowaway cases for various P & I clients."

Lawyer Hugh Bryant supplied an story about Hugh Dyer:

Hugh Dyer (ex-Millers and Newcastle P&I was certainly at one time a working policeman.I was told his introduction to the P&I business came as a result of nicking Millers' Senior Partner Sidney Fowler for speeding.

Hmmm....

Jeff Blum's origins of words piece in Item 6 last week also prompted responses. For instance William D. Hughes of San Diego wrote:

Mr. Blum's input was interesting, but I believe misinformed at least in part. A common misperception is that the word golf is an acronym standing for "gentlemen only, ladies forbidden." This is not true.The exact origin is uncertain, but some believe it arises from the Germanic word for club or the Dutch word "kolf" which means club or bat. See, for example, two
relevant web sites on etymologies and word origins:

http://www.wordorigins.org/home.htm and http://www.quinion.com/words/index.htm.

New Readers this week include:

Abigal Jeeves of Union Insurance Brokers
Susy Ferreira of GeneralCologneRe in Stamford USA Gemma Silvey of the Informa Group
Fazilette Khan of the Informa Group
Paul Garner of Tradegate in Australia
William Sharpe
Paul Lee of Reed Expo in Singapore
Efren P Magtibay, Asia Marine Manager for the Gerling Terry Ogg of Lawyers Clyde & Co
Toby Holmes of Saltchuk
Manuel Gonzalez Rodriguez of Andersen in Spain

News of Readers

Mike Farlie, former hound dawg for the Shipowners in Hong Kong, has been let out of his kennel in Vancouver BC and is sniffing around for International Shipping Consultancy work. What he likes is work involving shipowners, ship managers and the wide variety of services and authorities with whom they deal to create new business.

Mike can be contacted at:

mfarlie@hotmail.com

Wesley D. Wheeler of Wheeler Associates is on his travels to Hamburg to attend
with Mrs Wheeler the 125th Anniversary festivities of Blohm & Voss the shipyard
he represents in the USA and Canada.

http://www.blohmvoss.com/

Sean Harrington is the newly elected President of the the Canadian Maritime Law Association which will be hosting the next Comité Maritime International conference from 30th May - 4th June, 2004 in Vancouver. Some readers will remember him from the the time he ran his firm's London office in 1998/2000. But nowadays he is back in Montreal and Borden Ladner Gervais LLP.

This week has seen your editor abroad in China. Travel to Shanghai's Pudong Airport is routine and efficient. What caught the eye on the way in to town was the raised track of the world's first magnetic levitating
train which will connect the two shortly and allow speeds up to 420 km per hour.The first cars were shipped from Germany this week.

http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/shanghai.htm

Another rather Eastern Issue.

Enjoy.

2. Guest Column

Pat Gardiner who knows more than just about anyone can think of about the the Port of Felixstowe from his years at work there sent in this characteristic piece which he has written as part of his on going campaign in relation to the official reaction in the UK to the Foot and Mouth epidemic in 2001.

Strange Connections

We still get the echoes of an Imperial legacy from time to time. Who would have thought that there were direct links between Hong Kong's great trading houses and Britain's recent Foot and Mouth epidemic?

The British Ministry of Agriculture tried hard to blame the UK's resident Chinese community, but were caught red handed fabricating the evidence by an obscure retired Ship's Agent.

The great Hong Kong trading houses, founded mostly by Scots, were heavily involved in the opium trade and the resulting 19C wars between China and Great Britain. Later they became pillars of Britain's Imperial presence in the East. The Managing Director, usually until very recently a descendant of the founding family, was quaintly re-titled the "Taipan" or "Big Boss."

There was another qualification, other than ancestry, for becoming Taipan. All Taipans had to have served as a Ship's Agent, to have boarded incoming vessels, to have fixed cargoes and taken a full part in the colourful and sometimes dangerous waterfront life. Why were they required to have served this apprenticeship? Probably to give them a breath of knowledge of man and the sea, and perhaps to test their mettle and integrity.

So when Britain's government tried to blame Chinese Restaurants in Newcastle on Tyne for buying smuggled meat and allowing FMD to be taken in pigswill from their waste, they reckoned without the thoroughness of the British media, always distrustful of spin and leaks.

The TV took the trouble to check the story with our retired Ship's Agent. He recognised it as a fabrication and took action. He failed to stop broadcast and publication, but the original virulent version was toned down. Eventually two British Cabinet Ministers were forced to issue public apologies to Britain's Chinese community.
It did not stop several attacks on Chinese Restaurants by hooligans and a lot of unpleasantness, but it did take the sting from the story.

The Chinese in Britain are still troubled by the affair. An organisation has been set up to campaign for the rights of the 400,000 people who live in Britain. It's formation was sparked by this incident

Known as Min Quan, or "civil rights," it will also campaign for stronger action against a growing number of racist attacks and incidents in Chinese restaurants and takeaways

We asked our man, "How did you know the British government's story was a fabrication?" He laughed. "Thirty years as a ships agent. You get to know what people are likely to do and what is unlikely. It was an obvious falsehood. They got the details wrong."

"Why did you get involved?" we asked him.

"Fair Play" he said. "You don't blame people for something they did not do. Each year I would lecture young student Ship's Agents and Shipbrokers from all over the world, training in London. I usually talked about ethics, the difficulties, and the importance of a reputation for integrity and truth."

The world is a small place. Chinese companies that started life in British Hong Kong now own many of Britain's seaports. They too got blamed for letting foot and mouth into Britain and angry farmers picketed some ports. There is no evidence to support this either.

In Hong Kong, one of the last acts by the British was to introduce regulation to the Ship's Agency business, by interview not examination. They recognised the absolute importance of integrity in the profession even as they were leaving their last great colony.

The Taipan might be fading into history, but Ship's Agents still learn more in a year about lies and deceit than most will learn in a lifetime. It is sad when they have to correct governments.

3. New Report on China-Taiwan Direct Trade

The container trade analyst Charles De Trenck of Salomon Smith Barney Asia Pacific has mailed us his conclusions in respect to this area. He says

Direct links by 2004 stand their best chance ever now that Taiwan negotiations are more driven by Taiwan business community

Between 2005 and 2015 Shanghai will become the dominant Asia/NE Asia transport hub

Direct (as classified by customs) China - Taiwan trade has ALREADY accelerated in Jan- Apr '02

Tradeflows and cargo transit connectivity will gravitate northward, away from Hong Kong (the current #1 hub) and perhaps Kaoshiung (the current secondary hub)

Seaborne cargo costs for China - Taiwan trade may decline by 30%. Transit times could be cut in half

The Growth of the Taiwan business community in China is ahead of expectations. Examples include, dominance of fruit trade in Shanghai, growth of Taiwanese-directed service industry including schooling. Taiwan shipping lines, the main subject of current report, are additional case studies in increased China exposure.

The report includes a a number of case studies/special focus sections: Nike's supply-chain and potential changes with direct links; Detailed calling patterns at a central China port; A brief history of cross-strait relations; and Asian Airline cargo capacity breakdowns.

For a copy of the report contact Charles at:

charles.detrenck@citigroup.com

4. Maritime Security Update

Richard Gluck of Garvey, Schubert & Barer in Washington DC writes:

For an excellent summary of the current status of pending/ proposed maritime security measures in the US, I suggest Readers check the June 10th paper given by Chris Koch, CEO of the World Shipping Council, at a conference in Antwerp. It is the best single summary I have seen. It is available on the WSC web site in pdf format. When compared with an earlier statement issued in January (also on the web site) it shows that the liner carriers now are beginning to seize the initiative on the setting of standards, rather than simply waiting for government to impose them.

Go to:

http://www.worldshipping.org/

5. Warehousing Check Lists

Courtesy of new Reader Susy Ferreira we visited the General Cologne Re's site called Facworld. There are one or two toolkits made available there to would be insurers of facultative risks. The warning piece on underwriting warehouses certainly caught the eye:

"Recent (American) NFPA statistics estimate that in 1998 approximately 36,000 fires occurred in structures used for storage, accounting for $687mm of damage (over 10% of total fire damage for 1998 and a 20% increase from 1997). Warehouses are unique in their risk characteristics and provide a large potential for catastrophic loss. Underwriting warehouses requires a full understanding of the risk and its protection."

Doesn't it just.

http://www.facworld.com/FACworld.nsf/doc/WarehouseRating

6. And Finally

This joke from the rare vein of humour involving bankers came to us via the provenance of Mike Northen, the former President of Associated Container Transport (USA):

A blonde walks into a bank in New York City and asks for the loan officer. She says she's going to Russia for a Volga River boat trip for two weeks and needs to borrow $5,000.

The bank officer says the bank will need some kind of security for the loan, so the blonde hands over the keys to a new Rolls Royce. The car is parked on the street in front of the bank, she has the title and everything checks out. The bank agrees to accept the car as collateral for the loan.

The bank's president and its officers all enjoy a good laugh at the blonde for using a $250,000 Rolls as collateral against a $5,000 loan. An employee of the bank then proceeds to drive the Rolls into the bank's underground garage and parks it there.

Two weeks later, the blonde returns, repays the $5,000 and the interest, which comes to $15.41. The loan officer says, "Miss, we are very happy to have had your business, and this transaction has worked out very nicely,
but we are a little puzzled. While you were away, we checked you out and found that you are a multimillionaire. What puzzles us is, why would you bother to borrow $5,000?" The blond replies

"Where else in New York City can I park my car for two weeks for only $15.41 and expect it to be there when I return?"

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