BOW WAVE 186

Sunshine Edition

news and views on trade, insurance and risk

Bow Wave homepage
Previous issue (185) / Current issue / Next issue (187)

Wavy Line	sam@wavyline.com
(c)2003 WavyLine.com	Issue No 186 16 Jun 03
Published free of charge to Readers
Editor: Sam Ignarski
Subscribe	Unsubscribe

In this issue:

1. Welcome
2. Liner Shipping--EC Competition Rules
3. Spam Report
4. CMI Date for the Diary
5. High Risk Vehicle Theft Areas in the USA
6. And Finally...

1. Welcome

This morning your editor received a long list of unobtainable address messages (bounces) which indicate that one of the many spammers in business today has been using the wavyline address in an attempt to pass off a product as coming from this address. It beggars belief how anyone can think that this might be an effective way to conduct business.

The Bow Wave List is held securely on the servers of Messrs Lyris-Dundee and would never be placed at the disposal of third parties. It is therefore unlikely that Readers will receive this particular offering from the Grant Giveaway Team.

New Readers this week include:

Sue Copeman, Editor of Strategic Risk
Carol A Giles,Corporate Risk Manager at Aon Reed Stenhouse in Canada

Readers Write:

U.S. maritime attorney Stephen N. Lamb wrote this week. He practices in the Oslo office of Norway's largest shipping and offshore firm Wikborg, Rein & Co. and wrote to tell us that our previous "exploding biscuit" piece (Bow Wave Issue 184) about an American woman in a shopping mall parking lot was an urban legend with no basis in fact. Writes Lamb with a smile, "We expat Yanks have a difficult enough time as it is explaining the true instances of idiocy in our country...."

It is a pity how so often the facts get in the way of a good story. The unvarnished truth is all here:

http://www.snopes2.com/crime/safety/biscuit.htm

He may be reached at:

stl@wr.no

From Captain Roger Wormersley:

Re your item on Blimps (Bow Wave Issue 185) I am given to believe that during the First World War when the Royal Navy were experimenting with airships, there were two types, those that were 'rigid', that is the 'balloon' that was supported internally by a rigid framework within which were the gas sacs/envelopes providing the lift etc. eg The British R Class (R=Rigid) R34 , which flew from Edinburgh to New York in 4 days in July 1919, returning to Pulham in Norfolk, thus becoming the first aircraft to make a non-stop East/West crossing and return of the Atlantic, the R100, with the later well known Australian author Neville Shute as part of the design team and the R101, which crashed outside Paris in May 1930 and put paid to British airship development; and the German 'Zepplins' -- Graf Zepplin, Hindenburg et al, the latter which caught fire spectacularly when coming to its pylon in New York in 1937 and put an end to airships as a form of public transportation).

The airships that were not rigid were really just a self propelled balloon, supporting a gondola for the crew and power systems; being not 'rigid' they were 'limp' (particularly when deflated - 'rigid' s retained their form when the gas sacks were deflated). The first Navy experimental ballon was the '' Balloon 'A' - limp", which was not a success, the second "Balloon 'B' -limp" was, thus the 'BLIMP'.

Probably the best remembered balloon of all, certainly for those who were residents of the cities of the UK during WW2, was the 'Barrage Balloon', a gas filled balloon tethered by a flexible steel wire rope about a thousand feet long (?) to its static control point. The proliferation of these over the industrial cities of Britain were a severe deterrent to German Dive Bombers, for to dive among a virtual forest vertical steel wires lead to their destruction.

Contact him at:

sinbad@bkk.loxinfo.co.th

This Issue finds your editor enjoying the weekend's early summer sunshine on the Isle of Wight.

Heard on "Sorry, I haven't a Clue", a satirical BBC radio panel show:

Definition of insolent: someone who has fallen overboard from the IoW ferry

Enjoy.

2. Liner Shipping--EC Competition Rules

European Competition Consultant Peter Carlo-Lehrell has sent in the text of a speech given on 12JUN03 to the European Shipper's Council in Antwerp by Professor Mario Monti which gives unusually clear insight into the Commission's thinking on the rules applicable to liner shipping. Liner shipping accounts for some 70 per cent of all EC imports and exports. As to what accounted for the current reviewing of the competition rules by the EC he commented:

"It is now almost sixteen years since the liner conference block exemption entered into force. By way of comparison, the consortium block exemption is valid for only five years at a time, after which period it is reviewed to see whether the conditions for exemption are still fulfilled. Unlike wine, there is little evidence that block exemption regulations improve with age. Regulation 4056/86 was long overdue for review. A review was all the more pressing because of the exceptionally serious restrictions of competition authorised by the Regulation. Agreements or clauses containing those restrictions horizontal price-fixing and limitation of output are normally blacklisted, meaning that they are completely ineligible for exemption. Further delay in launching a review would not, therefore, have been a defendable option. Finally, the review of Regulation 4056/86 must be seen as part of the previously mentioned general and ongoing overhaul of the competition rules. In addition to the modernisation of antitrust procedures and the merger review, I would also like to mention the reviews of the car, insurance and technology transfer block exemptions. Underpinning all of these various efforts is the ambition to create rules that are appropriate for current and future market conditions, easy to apply, and effective.."

By way of tipping the wink, he said

"Although we are at the very beginning of the review process, and no option including maintaining the status quo has yet been excluded, there has already been some speculation about what consequences a repeal of the block exemption might have for the organisation of liner shipping on shipping routes to and from the EU. In this respect, all I can say is that we have no plans at present to abolish or restrict the scope of the consortium block exemption. Shipping lines would therefore still be able to enter into consortium agreements and other types of operational arrangements, such as vessel-sharing and slot exchange agreements. Unlike conference agreements, they focus on reducing costs and generating efficiencies, rather than on simply maximising gross revenue. It should therefore not surprise you to hear me say that from the
perspective of a competition policy-maker, the
arguments for maintaining the block exemption for consortia appear, at first sight, to be much stronger than those most commonly advanced in support of liner conference price-fixing."

See the full text of the speech at:

http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=SPEECH/03/294|0|RAPID&lg=EN;

3. Spam Report

Silicon.com, one of the better on-line reporters of the IT scene in the UK has launched a special publication dealing with the increasingly tiresome role that spam plays in e-mail. We can't go on like this...

http://www.silicon.com/category/165/10.html

4. CMI date for the Diary

Annette McCunn writes:

The Comite Maritime International 38th Conference will be held in Vancouver, Canada May 31st to June 4th, 2004 at the Westin Bayshore Resort and Marina. The conference will attract over 300 maritime industry experts, including ship operators, bankers, insurers and adjusters and lawyers.

For details go to:

http://www.cmi2004.org.

5. High Risk Vehicle Theft Areas in the USA

We read in the on line version of the admirable Insurance Journal that the US National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) has reported that nine of the top 10 metropolitan areas for vehicle theft are in or near ports and Canadian and Mexican borders or within easy reach of them.

These hot spots are:

1. Phoenix, Ariz.
2. Fresno, Calif.
3. Modesto, Calif.
4. Stockton-Lodi, Calif.
5. Las Vegas, Nev.
6. Miami, Fla.
7. Sacramento, Calif.
8. Oakland, Calif.
9. Seattle, Wash.
10. Tacoma, Wash

We wonder what the figures for Europe or Asia would say.

Read the full story at:

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/newswire/national/2003/06/11/29717.htm

6. And Finally......

Many thanks to Jeff Blum for these:

The following are actual letters that American Agony Aunt Abigail Van Buren (Dear Abby)admitted she was at a total loss to answer:

PS from Trevor Jones:

25 Things you should have Learned by Middle Age

1. If you're too open-minded, your brains will fall out. 2. Don't worry about what people think; they don't do it very often. 3. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
4. It ain't the jeans that make your backside look fat. 5. Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity. 6. My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance. 7. Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious. 8. It is easier to get forgiveness than permission. 9. For every action, there is an equal and opposite government program. 10. If you look like your passport picture, you probably need the trip. 11. Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks. 12. A conscience is what hurts when all of your other parts feel so good. 13. Eat well, stay fit, die anyway.
14. Men are from earth. Women are from earth. Deal with it. 15. No man has ever been shot while doing the dishes. 16. A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.
17. Middle age is when broadness of the mind and narrowness of the waist change places.
18. Opportunities always look bigger going than coming. 19. Junk is something you've kept for years and throw away three weeks before you need it.
20. There is always one more imbecile than you counted on. 21. Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
22. By the time you can make ends meet, they move the ends. 23. Thou shalt not weigh more than thy refrigerator. 24. Someone who thinks logically provides a nice contrast to the real world. 25. If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you've never tried before.

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

Thanks for reading BOW WAVE