BOW WAVE 236

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Wavy Line	sam@wavyline.com
(c)2004 WavyLine.com	Issue No 236 31 May 04
Published free of charge to Readers
Editor: Sam Ignarski
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In this issue:

1. Welcome
2. Large Art Fire in Leyton
3. JAL suffering from Sabotage
4. Tricolor Salvage Pictures
5. ISSC Certificates
6. And Finally...

1. Welcome

Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening. O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein. These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season.

Psalm 104:23-27 (King James Version)

New Readers this week include:

Eoin Lawless of lawyers Phillips Fox
David Bogg of brokers Benfield
Mark Birrell of Wild.Net
Andrew Ferguson of eb2bcom in Australia
Dave Baker of floating crane operators BT Marine in Portsmouth Law Student Tammy-Jo Fairweather of Surrey University

News of Readers

Portsmouth marine enthusiast Chris Porter is about to embark upon a 5 day super car race, starting at the Albert Memorial in London ending up in Monte Carlo in aid of The Children with Aids Charity.

http://www.cwac.org

There are still a few spots available on the bonnet: anyone who would like to sponsor the car and decorate it with their logo or indeed make a contribution of any amount should contact him at the address below:-

chris@gunwharfquays.fsnet.co.uk

A very full Issue this week showing particularly well why so many of us are fascinated all our lives by the subjects of transport and risk

Enjoy.

2. Large Art Fire in Leyton

Our sources in the international fine art market tell us that the fire at the Momart Warehouse in Leyton,East London so extensively reported in the general press by reason of the losses suffered by Messrs Saatchi and Saatchi, other collectors and institutions and numerous artisto-galacticos of the 1990s is quite a story. This is an industry with more that its fair share of warehouse fires. We can recall at least two in the UK in the last 15 years, the UKP 40 million loss at the warehouse of James Bourlet, near London Heathrow and a smaller one at the premisis of Stephen Morris at King's Cross which consumed many antiques and some art.

The pictures we have seen of the burnt out Leyton facility of operators Momart do not convince us that the term blue- chip has been entirely well earned. It is plainly an unfenced, ambient lockup, surrounded by not particularly desirable neighbours--one metalbashing company and a nearby cafe are not out of the top drawer of warehousing practice. The warehouse is said to represent around 20 per cent of the square footage operated by Momart.

Industry observers were rather surprised by the numbers of paintings stored in this kind of facility, which was best suited for the storage of large hard to steal works of sculpture. One collector we spoke to thought that the fire exposed the propensity of the UK art world to scrimp on its storage and transport costs, especially when compared with the facilities and equipment in use in the German and Swedish markets.

The fire evidently began on Sunday a week ago and gradually consumed all in its path (as warehouse fires are wont to do).

We understand the well regarded and frugal fine art loss adjustor Mark Dalrymple has been hired. There is some speculation that the Heath Lambert broking facility has this one, subject, it is speculated, to a UKP 10 million limit of liability. So far as the all risk insurances are concerned Axa and or the Hiscox syndicate are likely to be on many risks. Most people we talked to assumed the fire would be in the tens of millions category.

Some of the least insured interests may be the artists themselves. A leading british sculptor lost his entire back catalogue and is uninsured. The traditionally grasshopper-like approach to insurance may also apply to the private holdings of such artists as Damien Hirst

As adjusters sift around the triste remains, a Barry Flanigan bronze remains marooned next to an unstable wall,testimony to the importance of good firewalls in warehouse design and construction.

Like all such operators in the specialist world of art warehousing, Momart's will have standard trading conditions limiting liability to 8.33 SDRs per kg with a total limit of liability of UKP or SDR 3000 per loss whichever is smaller.

The small world of fine art insurance is busy this week and full of the sound of stable doors slamming.

3. JAL suffering from Sabotage

Eiichiro Tokumoto, the freelance writer on international trade has this month written in the Japanese magazine Gendai a report of trouble at JAL:

http://kodansha.cplaza.ne.jp/mgendai/

Here is a summary:-

At 6:50 AM on January 22 this year, at Tokyo international airport, a JAL official discovered that an electrical wire on a JAL Boeing 767 (aircraft number JA8234) had been cut, apparently an attempt at sabotage.

According to JAL's internal documents obtained by the author, the wire was in the cargo compartment of the aircraft, which was under maintenance from January 16 to 31. The document concluded "this was not due to natural cause or technical mistake, but was done by somebody's intention." There had been no danger to flight safety, but JAL immediately reported the incident to the police and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport(MLIT), and is currently carrying out internal investigations to identify a suspect.

The JAL documents say this was the fourth such case of attempted sabotage. The first case was discovered on July 16, 2000 on a Boeing 747-400 aircraft (JA8913) which was also undergoing maintenance operations at Tokyo International Airport at the time. The second case was on August 8, 2000 on a Boeing 747-400 (JA8075) at the New Tokyo International Airport. A document said the second incident was caused by something like a knife. The third case occurred on February 11, 2001 on a Boeing 747-300 at the New Tokyo International Airport.

Despite JALs internal investigation, no suspect for these incidents has been identified so far, but some company officials say the cuplrits are possibly engineers, who are frustrated with JAL's structural reforms. They say that JAL's reforms since 1990s carried out in the name of improving management efficiency - for example the outsourcing of maintenance jobs to subsidiaries, and the change of employment contracts - are behind the engineers's growing frustration. The MLIT says they are constantly informed by JAL about the ongoing internal investigation.

Eiichiro Tokumoto says that structural reform is essential for JAL to turn around its management efficiency, and adds that it is important for the company to examine the invisible impact of the reform measures on the psychology of employees. If indeed the wires were cut by engineers, he says implementing structural reform blindly without examining the human factor, will bring with it more risks of sabotage.

4. Tricolor Salvage Pictures

Thanks to XSH for these remarkable pictures of the slice by slice salvage of the Tricolor. We have rarely seen such good images from the scene of the job.

http://www.havenarbeiders.be/fototricolor.htm

5. ISSC Certificates

At least one flag state we know is getting its act together so far as the certification of ships for the purposes of the ISPS Code is concerned. The Consulate General of Panama in London has sent out a circular to all Panamanian ships reminding them of the fact that the Code enters into effect on 01July04:-

Re the International Ship Security Certificate as set out in Merchant Marine Circular 135:

http://www.segumar.com/HTML%20Merchant%20Marine%20Circulars/135.htm

The Panama Maritime Authority will issue the full term ISSC certificates within one week, providing that all the documents, reports and the payment of US $ 250.00 Dollars is submitted.

Shipowners can use the Consulate in London to effect the payment of the USD 250.00 in order to obtain the Official receipt, which MUST be sent to Panama together with all the documents required for the issuance of the ISSC.

For further details contact:

shipping@panaconsul.co.uk

ispspanama@ukonline.co.uk

Veronica Vallarino
Consul General of Panama
Panama House, 40 Hertford Street
London W1J 7SH
ENGLAND

6. And Finally...

Readers in Russia say that however good a foreigner's knowledge of Russian may be, they can always tell he or she is not a native speaker from a grammmatical lapse or two in the course of speech. The poem below, supplied by Xavier Hencker, is allegedly impossible to read aloud by non-native English speakers with 100 per cent accuracy. Hmmm.

I take it you already know
of tough and bough and cough and dough;
others may stumble, but not you,
on hiccough, thorough, lough and through.
And now you'd like to learn, perhaps
of certain less familiar traps?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word,
that looks like beard and sounds like bird,
and dead:it's said like bed, not bead,
For goodness' sake, don't call it "deed".
Watch out for meat and great and threat:
they rhyme with suite and straight and debt.

A moth is not a moth in mother
nor both in bother, broth in brother,
and here is not a match for there
nor dear and fear for bear and pear.
And then there's dose and rose and lose--
just look them up--and goose and choose.

And cork and work and card and ward,
and font and front and word and sword,
and do and go, and thwart and cart..
come, come, I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd mastered it when I was five!

PS from SEAI

Things that are difficult to say when you are drunk: a) Innovative
b) Preliminary
c) Proliferation
d) Cinnamon

Things that are VERY difficult to say when you're drunk: a) Specificity
b) British Constitution
c) Passive-aggressive disorder
d) Transubstantiate

Things that are DOWNRIGHT IMPOSSIBLE to say when you're drunk: a) Thanks, but I don't want to kiss you.
b) Nope, no more booze for me.
c) Sorry, but you're not really my type.
d) No kebab for me, thank you.
e) Good evening officer, isn't it lovely out tonight? f) I'm not interested in fighting you.
g) Oh, I just couldn't - no one wants to hear me sing. h) Thank you, but I won't make any attempt to dance, I have zero co-ordination.
i) Where is the nearest toilet? I refuse to vomit in the street. j) I must be going home now as I have work in the morning.

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