BOW WAVE 202

After September Edition

news and views on trade, insurance and risk

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Wavy Line	sam@wavyline.com
(c)2003 WavyLine.com	Issue No 202 06 Oct 03
Published free of charge to Readers
Editor: Sam Ignarski
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In this issue:

1. Welcome
2. More Busan and Typhoon Maemi
3. Two Years Jug for Fraudster
4. New Asbestos Report Charts Claims Growth
5. Vasili Arkhipov - The Man who Saved the World?
6. And Finally...

1. Welcome

Another rather good piece from Alexander Solzhenitsyn's, The Gulag Archipelago,Fortuna (London) 1974, on the need for a point of view:-

And what did Bukharin fear most in those months before his arrest? It is reliably known that above all he feared expulsion from the Party! Being deprived of the Party. Being left alive but outside the Party! And Dear Koba had played magnificently on this trait of his (as he had with them all) from the very moment he had himself become the party. Bukharin (like all the rest of them) did not have his own individual point of view. They didn't have their own genuine ideology of opposition, on the strength of which they could step aside and on which the could take their stand. Before they became an opposition, Stalin declared them to be one, and by this move he rendered them powerless. And all their efforts were directed toward staying in the Party. And towards not harming the Party at the same time.

(p 414)

New Readers this week include:

Adam Fenwick, Advertising Manager at Insurance Times Surveyor Norman J. Dufour in the Gulf of Texas
Ron Aitken in Australia
J. Paul Levine of New Haven, USA

News of Readers

Sean Harrington has been appointed a Judge of the Federal Court of Canada by the Governor-in-Council upon the recommendation of the Honourable Martin Cauchon, Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of Canada. At the time of his elevation Sean was serving as President of the Canadian Maritime Law Association.

Marketing and PR man Mike Revans works as a general marcoms consultant and is doing quite a bit of writing (press releases / case studies / collateral et al). He works from time to time with designer Chris Drake and Barry Tollfree (who now lives in Southwold).

contact him at:

michael.revans@btinternet.com

Quite a lot in this Issue from incident packed September.

Enjoy.

2. More Busan and Typhoon Maemi

Loss adjusters are busy opening files and reporting on this direct storm hit on Korea's shipbuilding heartland container gateway. Files are opened on 10 LNG newbuildings, a semi-submersible craft, an FPSO and several tankers which suffered extensive damage. 8 collapsed and 3 derailed container cranes have got the engineers' attention. Of the 2800 containers which suffered flooding,many contained cargo. These can be estimated at around $30 000 per teu to help round up the figures. According to one well-placed source in the reinsurance industry it is the non-marine property people who have also copped the loss on the famous $ 15 million "hotel ship" which was blown onshore.

For people following the Maemi aftermath, the reading of choice has been the daily e-zine Maritime Asia Today. The report on 30SEP03 was typically good:

"The Korea Container Terminal Authority has outlined some of the measures it has taken in the wake of the thunderous Typhoon Maemi that devastated much of the port of Pusan. It has signed a provisional contract with Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to purchase three quay cranes for an undisclosed price. The cranes have a 20-row outreach and can resist maximum instantaneous wind speed of 55m/s. For the record Maemi clocked in at 42.7m/s. The cranes will be delivered and installed by mid-February. The KCTA has decided to move three cranes, which are under construction, from Kwangyang to Singamman terminal in Pusan. The authority is in discussions with various domestic and foreign crane manufacturers for the remainder. At Jasungdae terminal the crane clear up operation starts this week, and will last 45 days while investigations over at Singamman terminal are continuing into whether the cranes there were built understrength. Once investigations are completed, the clear up operation will swing into action. The KCTA is confident that the port operation will be at more than 90% capacity by December this year. Total financial damage at the port of Pusan, including general piers, passengers terminals, fishery bases as well as container terminals, stands at 66.4bn won, KCTA officials said. Eager to drum up support for the nation's ports following the typhoon and a couple of crippling truckers strikes this year Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Choi Lark-jung will meet the bosses of local firms Hanjin Shipping and Hyundai Merchant Marine as well as heading overseas to meet up with Cosco and P&O Nedlloyd to shore up support. Economic incentives are being offered to ensure lines remain loyal to South Korea. From Wednesday transhipment port fees will be abolished. In addition, those that guarantee certain volumes at Korean ports will be entitled to significant reductions in fees. Currently transhipment fees stand at 2,100 won per teu."

http://www.maritimeasia.net

3. Two Years Jug for Fraudster

The month of September saw the consignment of one Milton Kounnou to jail for a series of cargo frauds on Middle Eastern Banks. The methods used were impeccably traditional.

Read the Serious Frauds Office Press Release at:

http://www.sfo.gov.uk/news/pr_year.asp?year=2003

4. New Asbestos Report Charts Claims Growth

Reader Adrian Leonard, who has made the subject his own has produced a new Report called Asbestos: The Relentless Peril, published by Informa.

The report says pending US legislation intended to preserve a pool of cash for legitimate claimants by stemming the flow of bogus claims and ending outrageous awards has no hope of passing. Meanwhile, the claims situation in the UK and Australia is beginning to boil over, while the pot is starting to simmer in France and elsewhere. The asbestos issue is heating up at a frightening rate. Anyone who thinks the end of asbestos claims is within sight should think again.

The report, which claims to be the most comprehensive written to date on the topic of asbestos claims and their impact on the global insurance and reinsurance sectors, includes a detailed review of the most recent actuarial studies of the issue. "One thing is clear from looking at the benchmark actuarial work," says Leonard "Things have changed since the latest public estimates for the ultimate cost of US claims. The latest reserving actions by US insurers suggest that their more recent actuarial analyses uncovered a problem significantly larger than is presently acknowledged."

For details go to:

http://www.informabookshop.com

5. Vasili Arkhipov - The Man who Saved the World?

Dennis Lavers, who is the Insurance Liaison Manager at the Tracker Network passed on this illustration of excellence in crisis management which appeared in the November 2002 issue of 'AIRMIC Express', the monthly members only AIRMIC publication:-

All of us need heroes and here is a story about someone who in an intolerable situation successfully managed a crisis which could have engulfed the planet. Remarkably it has got very little coverage.

On October 27th 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, a US warship was enforcing the quarantine of Cuba by depth charging a Russian submarine. To the Russian Captain, running out of oxygen and with temperatures on board around 100F and rising, they were under attack and were honour bound to retaliate regardless of the costs. He ordered that the nuclear weapons should be armed. Russian naval procedure required that the captain and two other officers had to agree to the firing. One second captain agreed, but the other, Second Captain Vasili Arkhipov, argued that the conditions for firing had not been reached, the hull had not been damaged and he succeeded in calming the situation.

The submarine's records have only just been made public and at a Conference held in Havana on October 13th 2002 on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 40 years after the events, Robert MacNamara, Kennedy's Defence Secretary, recognised how much closer to nuclear war we had been than anyone had imagined.

Amongst the lessons from this are:

You need robust processes which are clearly understood when working under conditions of great stress and danger;

Moral courage to go against the opinions of colleagues if necessary is essential;

Three heads are better than two in such situations;

The consequences need to be thought through. The US attendees at the Conference admitted that they had not done so thoroughly enough.

Sadly, Vasili Arkhipov died 3 years ago, but he deserves a special place in risk and crisis management.

Andrew Laws, the Website Controller over at Airmic, says that they will soon be launching www.VasiliArkhipov.com and if people would like to be informed of this launch, they can sign up for the free AIRMIC updates service at:

http://www.airmic.com

6. And Finally...

Many thanks to Jim Callahan of Metropolitan Stevedores for passing on this one:-

The following is from the Washington Post Style Invitational Contest, that asked readers to submit "instructions" for something, written in the style of a famous person.

The winning entry was "The Hokey Pokey," as written by Shakespeare:

O proud left foot, that ventures quick within

Then soon upon a backward journey lithe.

Anon, once more the gesture, then begin:

Command sinistral pedestal to writhe.

Commence thou then the fervid Hokey-Poke,

Mad gyration, hips in wanton swirl.

To spin! A wilde release from Heaven's yoke.

Blessed dervish! Surely canst go, girl.

The Hoke, the Poke -- banish now thy doubt

Verily, I say, 'tis what it's all about.

(Jeff Brechlin, Potomac Falls)

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