BOW WAVE 263

Bow Wave Issue 263--New Website Edition

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Wavy Line	sam@wavyline.com
(c)2004 WavyLine.com	Issue No 263 05 Dec 04
Published free of charge to Readers
Editor: Sam Ignarski
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In this issue:

1. Welcome
2. The month of November 2004 in Marine
3. Quarterpoints Column
4. Weatherly Square Riggers
5. Transport Canada's Helpful ISPS Page
6. And Finally...

1. Welcome

We launch the new Website this week. Have a look and let us have your views. It is only the start of a whole new approach.

New Readers this week include:

Glen Piper,Ted Adkinson and Doug Davis of lawyers Keesal,Young&Logan
Paul Bartlett of PB Marine Consulting
J Mishra of JN Port in India
Ozair Mustafa in the UAE
Simon Barker of Oland & Co in Toronto
Carlie Hobbs of Markel in London
London Solicitor Christopher Chauncy
Matti Temmes in Kotka, Finland)
Toronto broker Shirley.Pelzer of Marsh
Stephen Portman of Miller Insurance

News of Readers

Alex von Stemple has joined Informa as Research Director, Transport and Logistics

contact him at:

alex.vonstempel@informa.com

Andrew Bernard Clark of West Atlantic Marine Limited of 107 Island Bay Freeport, Bahamas and formerly of New Southgate, London died at the Rand Memorial Hospital on Friday, November 26, 2004 at the age of 58. A funeral service was held on Friday, December 3rd, 2004 at Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Church, Freeport, Bahamas .

April Crowther-Gow
West Atlantic Marine Ltd

Contact her at:

wamcoacrowther@coralwave.com

Readers Write

From Jon Gray:

There has been recent correspondence on substandard shipping and, most recently, the connection with insurers (Bow Wave Issue 261). You may know that our company (Inserve) carries out numerous "risk assessment surveys" on behalf of mainly London underwriters. These involve individual ships and companies and increasingly include the company offices. In our two years operating as Inserve and in the previous period where three of us worked with a leading P&I Club, we have seen insurers placing increasing pressure on shipowners to maintain their ships to a higher standard and to employ more suitable staff (office staff and crew numbers with suitable experience) to do so.

Whatever type of survey we carry out, insurers want us to raise recommendations with associated timescales and these are monitored to ensure compliance.

We think that the results are encouraging. For example, we are now seeing cases of fleets where the loss records now are sufficiently reduced such that the owners now can obtain local insurance when they could not before - and the London insurance market loses the business as a result! In some cases, we have surveyed ships where the results have caused the insurers to remove cover until there have been adequate improvements. Compliance with the recommendations raised has often improved maintenance programmes, further encouraged safe working practices and, we think, improved company support to many seafarers.

Where "compliance with recommendations within the timescales" is written in the policy as a warranty, it does concentrate owners' minds.

I agree with Robert Tallack that owners and flags (and those Recognised Organisations that represent them such as Class) are not doing enough. However to us, an increasing number of insurers are addressing substandard ships - it is unfortunate that there still remain those who will insure anything, sight unseen and sometimes with the knowledge that the risk has already been turned down elsewhere.

Contact him at:-

jon.gray@inserve.org

We have reached the 11 000 Readers mark this week and we have also launched a new website. It is on the website where we we will lodge jobs and other Reader Offers in the future. Please consider Bow Wave for advertising your jobs, services and products in 2005. Ask us for rates.

Enjoy.

http://www.wavyline.com

2. The month of November 2004 in Marine

Walter Mellert writes:-

Dear Mariners,

of rudely interrupted honeymoons, never ending cruises and great maritime job opportunities - there should be something for everyone this month, including a couple of losses and near misses for the more sombre minds:

--> Breakbulk would have a bright future were it not for ageing fleets, road and rail facilities, labor shortage and the preoccupation of the building industry with box ships, bulkers, cruisers and tankers.

--> Allegations made by owners of Wilhelmsen's Tampa that they were boarded off LA by the USCG, involving strip searching of the crew and restraining the captain are false - the agency's central computer doesn't have a respective record. A later statement rated the inspection as entirely routine.

--> Innovative recipe to safeguard cruise operators profits once the glut in berth space hits. Send the elderly on a neverending cruise, costs would be about the same as stuffing them into an assisted home calculates the US geriatric society.

--> Transparency International's corruption index 2004 gives top marks to Haiti, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Myanmar, Paraguay and Chad. Total bribes to secure gov't jobs are estimated at $ 400 bio pa

--> Tiger Wood's $ 57 mio honeymoon yacht Privacy is boarded by USCG for violating Puerto Rican waters without required advance notice. There goes privacy!

--> China signs a $70 bio deal with Iran for 250 mio tons of LNG deliverable over a period of 30 yrs. A similar deal with India worth $ 3 bio looks puny by comparison.

--> First indications on P&I point towards another, milder round (Feb05) of general increases ranging between 5 and 15% with the largest (the UK Club) leading the way with 12.5% .
--> Heard of a USCG inspector putting a missing lifeboat beacon battery in the list yet leaving a visible crack in the vessels superstructure bulkhead off; -- there was no respective entry in his checklist! Inspection by the rules!

--> You are a gentleman, over 40, single, presentable with good manners, love cruising and master the art of dancing beyond what GBShaw had in mind?
http://www.theworkingvacation.com

--> 92 blt Sovcomflot tanker Tropic Brilliance grounds in the Suez canal and causes a 5day, 100plus vessels backlog costing the canal authority $ 7 mio per day.

--> RCCL's Enchantment of the Seas (1997) is bumped by a tug, punching a hole 200 by 30 cm. They just don't make them like they used to!

--> Quote of the month: Stupid money doesn't last long and losers lose very badly". Which of course never prevented the emergence of new stupid money!

--> VLCC Front Eagle (308'000 dwt) breaks all records by earning $ 260'000 per day, equiv. to worldscale 345 on a voyage from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea.

--> Taking the worst case emission scenarios, global sea levels are expected to have risen by 85 cm come 2100. Detailed charts / reports at:-
http://www.acia.uaf.edu

--> Overloaded Chinese trucks are blamed for 75% of the 100'000 road fatalities pa. Don't forget the cargo exposure!

--> Free translation of an African proverb: The road "let them, I really don't care" quickly leads to the town "if only I would have known".

--> 7 seamen died when Korean flagged Marine Osaka slammed into a breakwater driven by 110kmph winds and later sank off Otaru, Hokkaido in the Sea of Japan.

--> 83 built, Chilean flagged Vicuna carrying methanol explodes during discharging ops in Paranagua, Brazil. 1 confirmed fatality, three crew still missing.

--> Lost Atlantis lost no more? Robert Sharmast of LA claims to have found the legendary city by sonar scanning, 80 km SE of Cyprus at 1500 m waterdepth.

--> A fire at Kolkata port destroys shed nr.4 containing cargo ranging from computers to silk and leather items.

--> Mangouras finally gets to leave Spain and go home to Greece for X-mas but must return to Spain to face (Prestige) trial later on. The Euro3mio bail still looming.

--> A Euro 70'000 fine requested by a Marseilles court for Italian tanker Panareo Primo for dumping 22 tons of sunflower oil. The Med's no salad bowl!

--> Full scale Melbourne box terminal terror alert turns out to be a false alarm, prompted by a slip of paper attached to the inside of a container, reading: "This container has a bomb".

--> New developments will add about 12.5 mio bbl per day to overall crude production, by 2010 half of which is eaten up by declining US onshore and NorthSea pumping, the rest a mere 1% growth pa, i.e. not enough! Meantime Brent falls to $ 40 bbl. so stock up!

--> A new BSE scare has USDA hopes of seeing a revival of the Japan beef trade worth $ 1.7 bio pa and suspended since last December, in jeopardy.

--> Raising the $ 5 mio deductible before pooling kicks in could both boost risk selection and dampen dangerous growth strategies, a P&I insider recently stated. Sounds reasonable!

--> P&I welcomed into the fold of marine insurance "proper" after more than one and a half century of often sour faced "mutual respect"? Cooperation and information sharing? A first summit seems to suggest just that.

--> Cousteau's famous Calypso, owned since 1950 by one of the Guinness family will finally be restored and turned into a museum, with the help of Carnival's dough. Fame and fortune!

--> While Asian shipbuilders clearly dominate the commodity part (tankers, bulkers, etc) there is a clear tendency towards a similar domination of European yards in the luxury segment (cruisers, ferries, megayachts).

--> Lloyds Register, handlers of 18% of the worlds tonnage again writes black numbers, mainly because of increased newbuilding works. Increases comfort level!

--> Numbers: A 250 000 dwt VLCC carrying a full crude cargo (275 000 m3 or ca 1.75 mio bbl) valued $ 87 mio at $ 50 per bbl, receiving $ 150 000 per day on a 20 day trip would equate to freight costs of 3.5% of value or roughly 1 cent per liter.

--> Fast ferries Akashia and Hamanasu deliver proof that CRP (contra rotating propellers) save more than 20% in fuel at same speed (main prop diesel, secondary electric)

--> The Baltic dry index hits an all time high! Maybe that rumored direct correlation to world stock markets is a tad distorted, at least in time.

--> A well kick on Snorre A with gas flowing up to the surface, thankfully blown away from the platform is later controlled. Still it illustrates that drilling offshore can be a dangerous business.

--> Ivan the terrible did break a few dishes; offshore loss estimates are closing in on the $ 2.5 bio mark and counting is continuing.

--> We hear the hull market is warming up for further, steady, albeit yet too small increases and the brokers are pushing for early renewals. So hang on in there, it's bound to get better!

--> Scott & Lithgow which ceased trading in 1993 after 23 yrs of nationalized decline is resurrected as a shiprepair yard.

--> The Prestige blame falls plainly onto Spain - says the official report!

(Note: Any opinion expressed in this item should be regarded as the personal opinion of Walter Mellert and not one made in his capacity as an employee of Swiss Re and any such opinion is not the opinion of Swiss Re, of any of its affiliated companies or of any of its officers or employees. Accordingly, Swiss Re hereby expressly disclaims any liability, loss, cost or expenses arising directly or indirectly from the content or expression of views of this item or of other Websites to which this item may provide a link)

3. Quarterpoints Column

Your editor's latest column in Lloyd's List examines the capacity of the internet to lead us away from hq...

Post Industrial, Post Modern Insurance

It was in connection with the future of insurance that a friend in the computer industry who works for companies in this field sent me the latest edition of Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, an on-line e-zine which examines the role that well-designed software can play in the lives of people. Nielsen argues that the internet is a harbinger of large changes to our way of life. Indeed he says it is an agent of decentralisation and deindustrialisation, by which he means the patterns of life set up during the 200 year long reign of the industrial revolution will over time be undercut by the influence of computerisation.

Mass production and centralised manufacturing have emerged in the industrial age giving rise to big companies and economies of scale. Employment and jobs have become the predominant way to make a living. And centralised cities and suburbs host most of the working population whose work life and leisure are separated. Altogether these developments have driven unprecedented centralization in human affairs and given rise to The Organisation Man we all know and recognise. Up to a few generations ago our ancestors lived to a different pattern: they lived in places where they knew everyone; working either for themselves or directly for the leader of a focused team (as on a farm, or in manufacturing on a small scale); with work and lives that were tightly integrated (and where homes often doubled as workplaces).

The ten year reign of the internet says Nielsen, promises to recapture some of the world lost to the great centralisers. We can already see some of these things: it is now possible for companies using computers to custom-build products instead of mass-producing them. The Internet allows for efficient transmission of specifications to the factory, and easy-to-use websites lets users quickly state their preferences . You can buy a pair of jeans this way. A world of niche products and services becomes possible. At Amazon 57 per cent of sales come from 2.2 million non-best-selling books. Each of these books sells only a few copies per year, but there are a lot of them. Companies can be virtual instead of being large lumps in centralised locations. Collaborative software helps people in different places work together on specific projects and then move on. It is increasingly possible to disperse companies and services. More people work from home and live far from cities with personal life being harder to separate from work life due to the pervasive forms of modern communication. Reputation matters a lot on the internet. Without it people do not find it easy to trade or function.

Quite a lot of this strikes home looking at the insurance world of 2004. Years of losses during the long soft market of the 1990s led to a huge wave of merger and consolidation. Financial bigness became one of the prerequisites of survival. Small loss prone syndicates in Lloyds and elsewhere went to the wall in a process which has still to find an end. Yet alongside this rise of the big financial battalions, there has also been a visible delayering of managements, a downsizing of bureaucracy, the beginnings of "working from home" , the formation of dispersed teams located in the
marketplace and within the traditional office and the rise of the small specialist companies able to work or consult on a huge variety of specialist subjects. Most of those who like looking into the future and opining can see no real reason why the trend towards outsourcing which has been such a feature of the
manufacturing world should not also follow in the services business. It is really only a matter of time before it reaches the insurance world when
customers will find themselves not only using computer code written in India, but policies, wordings,
invoices and all the other significant documentary products typical of insurance.

What is largely missing at present in insurance is a managerial ideology which will make the most of what some call the pastoral effect of the internet. A striving for control is ever present and a bruising way with people is typical. A sense of instability is all around, with higher rates of churn as people come and go from large organisations which have lost many of their likeable qualities in the years of struggling to prevail. The traditional benefits of long term employment, pensions at the end and a place in the order of things are nonetheless plainly not what they were.

I can just about imagine in the years to come at one of the industry awards dinners a well known figure opening the envelope with the words: "and the prize for the most virtual marine insurance organisation goes to.." I am just having trouble imagining from the current cast of organisations the likely winners.

4. Weatherly Square Riggers

Philip Goode writes:-

This is not an insurance or cargo item, but you have so many thousands of Readers connected with sea matters that it may strike a chord somewhere. I feel there is an important message in this site, something we have foolishly lost sight of. Some present-day square rigged sail training ships have quite disastrous sailing qualities, and that is not right or safe.

http://www.weatherlysquareriggers.com/

5. Transport Canada's Helpful ISPS Page

This organisation has recently published a rather helpful guide to the implementation of the ISPS Code.

http://www.tc.gc.ca/vigilance/sep/marine_security/assessments_plans/port/plan/menu.htm

6. And Finally...

Thanks for another from Frazer Hunt

A 1st grade teacher, Ms. Brooks, was having trouble with one of her students. The teacher asked, "Harry, what is your problem? Harry answered, "I'm too smart for the 1st grade. My sister is in the 3rd grade and I'm smarter than she is! I think I should be in the 3rd grade too!"

Ms. Brooks had enough. She took Harry to the principal's office. While Harry waited in the outer office, the teacher explained to the principal what the situation was. The principal told Ms. Brooks he would give the boy a test and if he failed to answer any of his questions he was to go back to the 1st grade and behave. She agreed. Harry was brought in and the conditions were explained to him and he agreed to take the test.

Principal: "What is 3 x 3?"

Harry: "9"

Principal: "What is 6 x 6?"

Harry: "36"

And so it went with every question the principal thought a 3rd grader should know.The principal looks at Ms. Brooks and tells her, "I think Harry can go to the 3rd grade."

Ms. Brooks says to the principal, "Let me ask him some questions." The principal and Harry both agreed.

Ms. Brooks asks, "What does a cow have four of that I have only two of?"

Harry, after a moment: "Legs."

Ms. Brooks: "What do you have in your pants that I do not have in mine?"

The principal wondered, why does she ask such a question?

Harry replied: "Pockets."

Ms. Brooks: "What does a dog do that a man steps into?"

Harry: "Pants"

Ms. Brooks:"What does a man do standing up, a woman do sitting down and a dog do on three legs?"

The principal's eyes open really wide and before he could stop the answer

Harry: "Shake hands"

Ms. Brooks:"What word starts with an 'F' and ends in 'K' that means a lot of heat and excitement?"

Harry: "Firetruck"

The principal breathed a sigh of relief and told the teacher, "Put Harry in the fifth-grade, I got the last six questions wrong."

PS From Peter Dixon's Joke of the Day

I had run across the term cyber sex a few times lately, so I decided to try to figure out what it meant. I figured it had something to do with the computer, so I started trying to find the sex drive on mine.

I looked everywhere, in all the folders on the
My Computer section, the add/uninstall software,
install hardware part of the control panel then got out all the manuals and went through them. I finally came to the conclusion that my computer is not equipped with one.So I decided to go to the computer store and see if I could buy one. I wanted to look intelligent and scholarly, so I wore my math hat.

Well, the salesperson in the first store was a rather stern looking woman. I gave her the make and model of my computer and asked her if she had any sex drives in stock. She kinda scowled at me and asked me if I was trying to get smart with her, figuring she had been impressed with my math hat, I replied that I tried to be smart with everyone. She said, rather rudely I thought, that she couldn't help me and walked away.HUH, must not have had any in stock.

In the second store, I gave the salesperson the make and model of my computer and asked if they had any sex drives in stock. He kind of snickered and asked if I meant a hard drive. I thought about it for a minute and told him yeah, maybe that, but I think I should already have one installed. He started laughing at me said something about me trying to kill him. "You're killing me!" Something like that and walked away.

Hmmmm, must be out here too. Must be hard to keep in stock I wasn't trying to kill him I wasn't even hurting him.

The guy in the third store laughed and asked me if I'd just fallen off the turnip truck. I assured him I'd never been on a turnip truck, but I'd fallen off the manure wagon a few times. He mumbled something about that explaining it. "She's fallen off the wagon, that explains it," like that and walked away laughing.

The guy in the fourth store said something like, "boob" under his breath and walked away. Wonder why he only noticed one? Anyway I figured they must not carry them in stores maybe have to order from a catalog or something.

So that's where I am now.

If any of you have some computer skills and could help me locate my sex drive, I would appreciate it then all I'd have to do is figure out what to do with it.

BOW WAVE is published each week to over 11 000 Readers in the transport,insurance,shipping and finance industries.

Thanks for reading BOW WAVE