BOW WAVE 199

Down Under Edition

news and views on trade, insurance and risk

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Wavy Line	sam@wavyline.com
(c)2003 WavyLine.com	Issue No 199 15 Sep 03
Published free of charge to Readers
Editor: Sam Ignarski
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In this issue:

1. Welcome
2. Market Movement
3. MLAANZ Date for the Diary
4. Special Cargoes
5. Cautionary Tale
6. And Finally...

1. Welcome

Taken from The Shark Net--Memories and Murder by Journalist Robert Drewe who describes his boyhood stamping grounds in Western Australia:-

Fremantle was rarely short of news of a raffish sort. The previous century, Fremantle harbour had been blasted out of the limestone seabed where the Swan River estuary suddenly narrowed and twisted and flowed into the Indian Ocean. Ever since, as Australia's first port of call for shipping from Europe, Asia and Africa, as well as the home of State's fishing fleet, it had been a rough-house town.

A young chaser of ambulances and fire engines (as well as police-court reporter and shipping-list compiler) walked the windy night-time wharves and streets with caution. The waterfront pubs were bloodhouses. Most mornings Polish and German seamen appeared before the court for the previous night's assaults with marlinspikes and vodka bottles on each other or the prostitutes in the Cleopatra Hotel. At nights and weekends the sons of Italian and Greek fishermen, Irish wharf labourers and Yugoslav vegetable growers circled the port in the V8s looking for girls and fights. At least one of their desires was usually met.

But by day its population, maritime aspect and leached limestone buildings gave Fremantle a calm and distinctively Mediterranean character. It was a cohesive, strangely old- fashioned place, proudly independent for a town situated only thirteen miles downriver from Perth, with power more or less evenly divided between the Waterside Workers' Federation and the city councillors (mostly second- and third- generation shipping and general merchants) between Catholics and Masons, between the South Fremantle and East Fremantle football clubs.

(2000) Penguin Books, pp 288-289

New Readers this week include:

Les Rout,National Underwriting & Claims Manager - Marine Division QBE Mercantile Mutual in Australia
Mike Sullivan, State Manager - NSW Marine Division QBE Mercantile Mutual Shane Barry, Commercial Hull Underwriter, QBE Mercantile Mutual Chris Kuepers, Information Manager, WK Webster in London

News of Readers

Old Russia hand Frank De Pauw (MD) and Dirk Polfliet were in London this week introducing their new Loss Adjusting and Surveying business called dps. The new office has been open since 01 September and is on the left bank of Antwerp near the docks.

Contact them at:

frank.de.pauw@dpsurveys.com
dirk.polfliet@dpsurveys.com

David Herratt, formerly with Thomas Miller has moved to Lloyd's of London where he is now working as Risk Executive, Operational Risk in the Risk Management Division.

Contact him at:

David.Herratt@lloyds.com

Marco A Tapia, the IT man for the P&O Ports group who from time to time talked great sense at conferences about the way to network a global group of operations scattered all over the earth, sometimes in very plain conditions indeed, is in business for himself these days, though he says his products have all been informed by what he learned with the terminal industry.

You can see some of his wares which include a Project and Risk management and Help desk software at his website at:

http://www.picnet.com.au/promo/picnetpolspromo4.htm

Contact him at:

Marco.Tapia@PicNet.com.au

Readers Write:

Michael Bruce, M.I.T.I writes:

Referring to your Item on the"Translation Wizard" (Bow Wave Issue 198) , we professional translators specialising in Marine matters are often pressed to take aboard the high-tech. computer translation equipment. Tho' these do have their uses for standard correspondence, etc., things do unwind sometimes, as illustrated by this tale:

In the Andean countries in S. America, a way of emphasising one's point is to tack on the phrase "no más"! (lit. "no more"!). There's a man in a closed room who hears a knock on the door and cries : "entre no más, y tome asiento!" (come in and take a seat!).

On being punched into the computer, this comes out as "Between no more, and drink a chair!" If anyone's interested in more near-to-the-meaning translations (Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese), contact

BruceTransUK@aol.com

Alan Goldman, the maritime consultant, writes::

Having been frustrated for many years by the deluge of untargeted mail that organisers send out (understandably as they can't know my interests) I came to the conclusion that there has to be a better way of notifying people of events.

WhichConference is a new free service that has recently been launched to provide potential delegates with email notification of forthcoming events that match their interests and requirements as specified by them. The service covers maritime and related sectors (as well as all other industry sectors and areas of specialisation that may be of interest).

Registration is simple and takes no more than a few minutes and can be updated as necessary to reflect new areas of interest/responsibility

Have a look at:

http://www.whichconference.com

Admiralty lawyer Mike Ryan on September 11 writes:

Have just completed boxing things for the move back to lower Manhattan. Somewhat fitting that the phones and computers will go done this afternoon and come back on line tomorrow...intentionally. Two years ago we had no choice. Amazing how much paper, etc. one can collect in two years. I may run for "Pack Rat of the Western World"!
The last move was a bit simpler; no boxing, no hauling, no unpacking. Everything went out the door with the building; except the memories.
The particulars on the new digs are:

Michael J. Ryan, Esq.
Hill, Betts & Nash, LLP
One World Financial Center
200 Liberty Street - 26th Floor
New York, N.Y. 10281
Phone: 212 839 7000
Direct Line: 212 589 7516
Cell Phone: 908 209 8423
Fax: 212 466 0514
E-Mail:tts.com

It may be a seasonal reason for why so much of this week's edition comes from the Antipodes. In any event many thanks to the Readers down under who supplied so much this week.

Enjoy.

2. Market Movement

Your editor's last Quarterpoints column in Lloyd's List opines that the hard market in marine insurance already looks ripe. This appears in the same issue of the paper as a view from the well informed Rowena Potter of Standard & Poor's who thinks it will be 2005 before the turn. From where we are sitting, the going already looks a little spongy:-

Thoughts on the Turning

The return to work atmosphere is strong in the London insurance market this week. And there is a certain feeling about that the rise in rates--which has been such a feature of life since September 11, 2003--has reached its peak. Experience shows that it was a far better thing to have entered the market with new capital at the time of the market's hardening. Being able to take advantage of rising rates in a market of scarce capacity is rather like being an Australian entering an English organisation. All the complicated interactions of the past, the understandings, one's place in the order of things, they do not really apply to the start ups and success is less likely to be sapped in the mire of precedent.

Certainly it is hard to contemplate the notion that the marine market has seen the best of rates for another cycle. With the diminution of investment income and given cargo and hull market's proven ability to endure a commercial drubbing for years and years, the realistic prospect of enjoying an underlying surplus seems to be lasting about as long as one of those northern summers in the Baltic. During the hard time, many insurance buyers have taken the option of the high retention and now only purchase reinsurance in excess of a handy figure like 500 000 or 1 million dollars. Many of these organisations will see themselves as only their underwriters have seen them--prone to claims, not liable to return a surplus and quite demanding to service. It will be interesting to see whether they will return to the market as buyers of working layer insurance. Once they have found ways of servicing their claims handing and problem solving, I suspect they will not.

This is partially because the poor investment returns, to which we have become iniured, place a higher premium on underwriting integrity. Notwithstanding the time it takes before claims are paid out by people like liability underwriters, money does not compound very fast on 3.5 per cent annual rates of investment returns.

The rating agencies have told the story of recent years quite well. It seems like the entire industry has been shifted down at least one rating level in the past two years, to reflect the industry's narrowing horizons and the bonfire of cash caused by a long strength-draining soft cycle which was punctuated by the largest insured claims (one loss or two) in the history of the industry.

So the insurance industry's voracious hunger for money, which resembles the appetite of a modern government, is likely to be reflected in a variety of ways. It is remarkable for instance how many insurance organisations have been finding estimates in their books in back years which have been too pessimistic. The ability to release back year reserves for some has the effect of watering their parched roots. This is not a very easy thing to judge at any one time. Slow payment of claims may add years to the time before a year can be closed. It seems these days that insurance regulators, when judging the valuation of closed years, like to see figures which are able to bear the costs of run off administration should it be needed. Given the amounts in closed years still on the books of the industry, this can only seem a wise precaution on the part of the regulators.

In some cases there are new-fangled reinsurances designed to protect the financial reserves. These devices look away from the immediate consequences of poor underwriting and help to smooth the short and medium term path. But in the end, an underwriting book which continues to erode, insure the loss prone and drain capital will not long be surrounded by supporters. Increasingly the history rich profession of marine underwriting is under the ownership of companies more comfortable with the guiding spirit of the actuaries and the mass market buyer of insurance products. This tends to make these new owners deaf to the special pleading which often attends a bad run in the marine insurance markets.

If the immediate signs that rates have peaked in the marine markets is borne out by events, the room that good arbitrageurs make for themselves may not be as generous as it usually is. If this is so there is likely to be bit of a crush at the exit in fragmented markets like hull underwriting (where even the largest players traditionally eschew large shares of the world market). In the end of course the most effective loss prevention strategy known in the business is not to write the risk. It might be hard to credit as the market turns but it rather looks as if getting the right price for the risk and a proper professional reluctance to assume poor risks will be the essence of the job in 2004.

3. MLAANZ Date for the Diary

Franc Asis has passed along the reminder that The Maritime Law Association of Australia and New Zealand are holding their 30th Annual Conference and General Meeting
at the Stamford Plaza in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia on 1-3 October 2003. A conference programme is available on line go to:

http://www.mlaanz.org

4. Special Cargoes

Students of the curious methods of stowaways have heard tell of the "Harpur Method", named after a lady who stowed away in a container of household effects from the UK to South Africa during the 1980s and lived to tell the tale. Reader Xavier S Hencker has passed on this story of a move in the same great tradition:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1039788,00.html

5. Cautionary Tale

Shane Barry who works for the hull side of QBE MM passed on this clipping. There is no end to the atrocious things people do to themselves for the sake of a laugh. Some of these things we wouldn't wish on our worst enemy.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/03/1062548893255.html

6. And Finally...

Many thanks to Jeff Blum for these Signs of Good Intentions

Cocktail lounge, Norway:
LADIES ARE REQUESTED NOT TO HAVE CHILDREN IN THE BAR.

Budapest zoo:
PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS. IF YOU HAVE ANY SUITABLE FOOD, GIVE IT TO THE GUARD ON DUTY.

Doctor's office, Rome:
SPECIALIST IN WOMEN AND OTHER DISEASES.

Hotel, Acapulco:
THE MANAGER HAS PERSONALLY PASSED ALL THE WATER SERVED HERE.

Using hotel air conditioner, Japan:
COOLES AND HEATES: IF YOU WANT CONDITION OF WARM AIR IN YOUR ROOM, PLEASE CONTROL YOURSELF.

Car rental brochure, Tokyo:
WHEN PASSENGER OF FOOT HEAVE IN SIGHT, TOOTLE THE HORN. TRUMPET HIM MELODIOUSLY AT FIRST, BUT IF HE STILL OBSTACLE YOUR PASSAGE THEN TOOTLE HIM WITH VIGOUR.

Men's rest room in Japan:
TO STOP LEAK TURN COCK TO THE RIGHT.

Nairobi restaurant:
CUSTOMERS WHO FIND OUR WAITRESSES RUDE OUGHT TO SEE THE MANAGER.

On the grounds of a private school:
NO TRESPASSING WITHOUT PERMISSION.

On an Athi River highway:
TAKE NOTICE: WHEN THIS SIGN IS UNDER WATER, THIS ROAD IS IMPASSABLE.

On a poster at Kencom:
ARE YOU AN ADULT THAT CANNOT READ? IF SO, WE CAN HELP.

In a City restaurant:
OPEN SEVEN DAYS A WEEK, AND WEEKENDS TOO.

A sign on an automatic restroom hand dryer:
DO NOT ACTIVATE WITH WET HANDS.

In a Pumwani maternity ward:
NO CHILDREN ALLOWED.

In a cemetery:
PERSONS ARE PROHIBITED FROM PICKING FLOWERS FROM ANY BUT THEIR OWN GRAVES.

Sign in Japanese public bath:
FOREIGN GUESTS ARE REQUESTED NOT TO PULL COCK IN TUB.

Tokyo hotel's rules:
GUESTS ARE REQUESTED NOT TO SMOKE OR DO OTHER DISGUSTING BEHAVIOURS IN BED.

Menu of Swiss restaurant:
OUR WINES LEAVE YOU NOTHING TO HOPE FOR.

Tokyo bar:
SPECIAL COCKTAILS FOR THE LADIES WITH NUTS.

Bangkok temple:
IT IS FORBIDDEN TO ENTER A WOMAN EVEN A FOREIGNER IF DRESSED AS A MAN.

Hotel brochure, Italy:
THIS HOTEL IS RENOWNED FOR ITS PEACE AND SOLITUDE. IN FACT, CROWDS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD FLOCK HERE TO ENJOY ITS SOLITUDE.

Hotel lobby, Bucharest:
THE LIFT IS BEING FIXED FOR THE NEXT DAY. DURING THAT TIME WE REGRET THAT YOU WILL BE UNBEARABLE.

Hotel elevator, Paris:
PLEASE LEAVE YOUR VALUES AT THE FRONT DESK.

Hotel, Yugoslavia:
THE FLATTENING OF UNDERWEAR WITH PLEASURE IS THE JOB OF THE CHAMBERMAID.

Hotel, Japan:
YOU ARE INVITED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE CHAMBERMAID.

In the lobby of a Moscow hotel:
YOU ARE WELCOME TO VISIT THE CEMETERY WHERE FAMOUS RUSSIAN COMPOSERS, ARTISTS, AND WRITERS ARE BURIED DAILY EXCEPT THURSDAY.

Hotel catering to skiers, Austria:
NOT TO PERAMBULATE THE CORRIDORS IN THE HOURS OF REPOSE IN THE BOOTS OF ASCENSION.

Menu, Poland:
SALAD A FIRM'S OWN MAKE; LIMPID RED BEET SOUP WITH CHEESY DUMPLINGS IN THE FORM OF A FINGER; ROASTED DUCK LET LOOSE; BEEF RASHERS BEATEN IN THE COUNTRY PEOPLE'S FASHION.

Supermarket, Hong Kong:
FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE, WE RECOMMEND COURTEOUS, EFFICIENT SELF-SERVICE.

The Soviet Weekly:
THERE WILL BE A MOSCOW EXHIBITION OF ARTS BY 15,000 SOVIET REPUBLIC PAINTERS AND SCULPTORS. THESE WERE EXECUTED OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS.

East African newspaper:
A NEW SWIMMING POOL IS RAPIDLY TAKING SHAPE SINCE THE CONTRACTORS HAVE HROWN IN THE BULK OF THEIR WORKERS.

Sign in Germany's Black Forest:
IT IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN ON OUR CAMPING SITE THAT PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT SEX, FOR INSTANCE, MEN AND WOMEN, LIVE TOGETHER IN ONE TENT UNLESS THEY ARE MARRIED WITH EACH OTHER FOR THIS PURPOSE.

Hotel, Zurich:
BECAUSE OF THE IMPROPRIETY OF ENTERTAINING GUESTS OF THE OPPOSITE SEX IN THE BEDROOM, IT IS SUGGESTED THAT THE LOBBY BE USED FOR THIS PURPOSE.

Ad by Hong Kong dentist:
TEETH EXTRACTED BY THE LATEST METHODISTS.

Laundry in Rome:
LADIES, LEAVE YOUR CLOTHES HERE AND SPEND THE AFTERNOON HAVING A GOOD TIME.

Tourist agency, Czechoslovakia:
TAKE ONE OF OUR HORSE-DRIVEN CITY TOURS. WE GUARANTEE NO MISCARRIAGES.

Ad for donkey rides, Thailand:
WOULD YOU LIKE TO RIDE ON YOUR OWN ASS?

On box of clockwork toy made in Hong Kong:
GUARANTEED TO WORK THROUGHOUT ITS USEFUL LIFE.

In a Swiss mountain inn:
SPECIAL TODAY - NO ICE-CREAM.

Airline ticket office, Copenhagen:
WE TAKE YOUR BAGS AND SEND THEM IN ALL DIRECTIONS.

Advertisement found in a brochure at an Argentinean industrial plant manufacturer PLANT ERECTIONS, ALL SIZES, ANYWHERE IN THE COUNTRY AND ABROAD.

PS From Barbara Jennings:

Sky TV have just won the rights to screen the first World Origami Championships from Tokyo.

Unfortunately it's only available on Paper View......

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