BOW WAVE 182

Jury Trial Edition

news and views on trade, insurance and risk

Bow Wave homepage
Previous issue (181) / Current issue / Next issue (183)

Wavy Line	sam@wavyline.com
(c)2003 WavyLine.com	Issue No 182 19 May 03
Published free of charge to Readers
Editor: Sam Ignarski
Subscribe	Unsubscribe

In this issue:

1. Welcome
2. PowerPoint--Kiss of Death?
3. Container Trades--Reading the Evidence 1Q03
4. Flying Kites
5. The Liability Scene in the US
6. And Finally...

1. Welcome

New Readers this week include:

Zareena Hussain of ITIC
Nick Mcmullen and Sarah Kinsella of lawyers Bryant Hamilton Canadian dangerous goods expert Norman Loiseau
Mike Powell of CHIRP

News of Readers

The Swedish Club, that estimable pioneer of the convergence of hull and P+I insurance is closing its London office later this year, according to Managing Director Frans Malmros.

Opened in the mid 1990s, the office it seems helped the mutual bring in freight demurrage and defence work. Now the Gothenburg-headquartered Club will transfer slots and people to their other offices in Asia, Greece and Scandanavia where they have major groups of clients.

Sadiq Jaafar, the marine lawyer in Baghdad has been in the city throughout, although it is not very clear for now whether a legal system may be said to be in operation. Internet and phone connections are not yet back to any sense of normality.

A mixed bag of an Issue this week with a strong paper on the US tort scene in Item 5.

Enjoy.

2. PowerPoint--Kiss of Death?

There is a thoughtful piece in Business 2.0 called Unplug that Projector!--on the limitations of the PowerPoint presentation which figures so often at business meetings these days. Columnist Jimmy Guterman starts:

"Hi, my name is Jimmy. I'm 40 years old, I make my living as a consultant, and I've never created a presentation using Microsoft PowerPoint. Clients occasionally look at me as if I'm from Mars when I show up without slides. I've found PowerPoint presentations to be superficial ways of delivering information. They are not actual presentations; they are, in fact, speaker's notes on which a real presentation should be built."

Read his whole column at:

http://www.business2.com/articles/web/0,,49519,00.html

Like anyone who visits this area of life, Guterman makes reference to the works and thoughts of the great guru of information presentation Edward Tufte, whose ideas and illustrations can change the whole way you look at information.

http://www.edwardtufte.com/794176473/tufte/

3. Container Trades--Reading the Evidence 1Q03

We have received the latest conclusions from Hong Kong based container industry analyst Charles De Trenck. To summarise:-

Q03 volumes from Asia to the US grew 19%, the same level as the heady growth of 2002. For the full year we've been expecting growth to moderate to 10% (revised from 9% Feb '03), given base and Iraq effects

HK port growth of 5% in April '03 was weaker than recent momentum (YTD 10%) but proved a fair performance overall (Sars impact too early to show)

Slowing South China? Shenzhen grew 29% in April against 42% YTD. Shenzhen's volume growth has showed first signs of slowing but we believe it will take a few months to establish a trend, especially as Chinese New Year effects tend to distort growth data in the first few months of the year

Sars impact expected to hit July or August trade data and possibly reduce prospects for 2004. Sars has hurt some China production at the margin and we believe this should begin taking down growth numbers by July or August. SE Asia and South Asia expected to benefit. We believe margins for some exporters may have been squeezed by buyers

China carriers losing market share is a novel development (and not related to Sars, for those who ask). After China Shipping stormed on the scene four years ago, it is now giving back some gains

Freight rate increases: Recent May US$700/FEU (US$350/TEU) increase is resulting in a 20% rate hike all-in out of Asia (against what we thought 3-4 months ago would be about 15-20%). This news should be fully reflected in current share prices. Investors buying for fresh upside opportunities should be looking at 2004 drivers (ie, case for stability of rates in FY04; also why we are constructively positive on NOL but not raging bulls at S$1.3)

Equity outlook: Summer may prove a critical test period for container shipping shares. Past practice should tell investors to lock in some gains this summer. But potential 2004 stability may be a reason to stay partly invested or buy after corrections. Conclusion is that more expensive counters deserve more caution now than six months ago

Current share trading: Container shipping stocks in Asia have performed strongly recently. We think Taiwan counters have traded toward the higher end of their trading ranges. In our view,Yang Ming (2609.TW; 2H) continues to provide trading opportunities (ie, when it corrects to NT$15) and Wan Hai (2615.TW; 2H) a longer-term opportunity when shares come off to NT$26 level. OOIL (0316.HK; 1L) remains our favorite deep discount and profit growth story, while NOL (NEPS.SI; 2L) offers rerating upside with turnaround potential.

Contact Charles at:

charles.detrenck@citigroup.com

4. Flying Kites

Dave Kulp of the Kite Corporation has drawn our attention the organisation's ambitious project to install kite power on craft owned by Adventurer Cruise Ships.

The two companies expect to work together first, to add kite sail assist to "Adventurer 2," smallest of Adventurer Cruise Ship's vessels at 187 ft and 924 tons, and later, to add kite sail assist to other, much larger vessels in Adventurer Cruise Ship's fleet. The goal is to retrofit the ship "Big Red Boat II" with kites. "Big Red Boat II" is 650' in length and 38,000 tons.

Read all about the idea of kites at:

http://www.kiteship.com/

5. The Liability Scene in the US

Courtesy of our friend in Australia Patrick Moore of LISAN we have read with great interest the extensive paper presented at the RIMS Conference in Chicago by the Insurance Information Institute. It is 117 slides long and quite a long download but anyone with liability exposures in the US will find something which will challenge them.

http://server.iii.org/yy_obj_data/binary/686661_1_0/liability.pdf

6. And Finally...

Thanks to Serena Standing of eSecure for these 16th century whaddyaknows. Some of them may even be true we suppose...

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be.

Here are some facts about the 1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odour.

Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married. Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children-last of all the babies.

By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water!"

Houses had thatched roofs - thick straw - piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the dogs, cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof.

When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs"

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could really mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying "dirt poor".

The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they kept adding more thresh until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the saying a "thresh hold."

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, "Peas pudding in the pot nine days old."

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off.

It was a sign of wealth that a man "could bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leak onto the food, causing lead poisoning, often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or "upper crust."

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The
combination would sometimes knock them out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road
would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.

They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wakeup. Hence the custom of holding a "wake."

England is old and small and the local folks started running out places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a "bone-house" and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they thought they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell.

Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the "graveyard shift") to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be "saved by the bell" or was considered a "dead ringer."

PS from Jim Callahan in California:

As received from a female underwriter of workmen's comp lines:

Last night while I lay sleeping, I died or so it seems; Then I went to Heaven but it was only in my dreams. But it seems St. Peter met me, there at the Pearly Gate; He said, "I must check your record, so stand right here and wait. I see where you drank alcohol, and swore quite often too. Fact is you've done many things that a good person shouldn't do. We can't have people like you up here, Your life was full of sin." Then he read the last of my record, grasped my hand and said, "Come in."

He took me to the Big Boss, "Take her and please treat her well, She's worked in insurance, Sir, she's had her share of hell."

BOW WAVE is published each week to around 7550 Readers in the transport,insurance,shipping and finance industries.

Thanks for reading BOW WAVE