BOW WAVE 511

Bow Wave Issue 511--Summers's End Edition

news and views on trade, insurance and risk

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(c)2009 WavyLine.com	Issue No 511 31 Aug 09
Published free of charge to Readers
Editor: Sam Ignarski
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In this issue:

1. Welcome
2. Accident off the Hook
3. P&I Mid Term Review
4. Brit Trucks Scarcer
5. NZ Clink
6. And Finally...

1. Welcome

New Readers this week include:-

Gautam Boda of JB Boda in Mumbai
Ivanna Dorichenko of Hammonds
Steve Byrne of the RSA in Manchester
Don Cockrill
Surveyor Edward F Travers in Seattle

News of Readers

Ray Engeley has been appointed the new head of technical services for the Road Haulage Association. He joined the RHA two years ago as public affairs manager after a long career in the haulage industry. He has wide experience of truck and maintenance procurement and day-to-day operational management. He is based at the RHA's Weybridge office.

Note from the Editor

Welcome to a very late edition of Bow Wave. Our end of summer edition has plenty to review, for all that.

Enjoy!

2. Accident off the Hook

Our Sunday morning spent on the blissful Isle of Wight was punctuated by news of the collision between two container ships, the 1980 built 32629 grt "MSC Nikita" and the 2000 built 8861 grt "Nirint Pride". The Pride has a very bashed in bow.

Initial Report

http://shipoftheday.blogspot.com/2009/08/msc-nikita-nirint-pride-collision-off.html

Pictures

http://uglyships.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/239-31-08-2009.pdf

3. P&I Mid Term Review

Steve Griffiths of Aon Marine has passed us his firm's latest review of the P&I industry which is not entirely complimentary as it says:-

Aon's P&I Mid-Term Review is suggesting that P&I clubs only need to increase premiums by 0-7.5% despite the surge in high value claims in 2006 and 2007 and the steep decline in investment income for 2009.

Aon believes the unprecedented effects of the global credit crisis have acted as a warning for clubs to increase underwriting discipline and cut their over reliance on investment income. Reduced shipping activity should also reduce claims levels and bring more stability to shipowners’ premiums.

Key findings of the Review include:

The inflated incidence of high value claims (individual claims in excess of $7 million) in 2006 and 2007 were random and not aligned to a particular trend.

The claims values for 2008 and 2009 have dropped considerably but the inter club pooling mechanism failed to cater for the volatility of a concentrated surge of activity followed by relative inactivity over a short space of time.

The credit crunch is an additional factor having an adverse effect on club investment performance with many clubs over exposed to equities and reporting substantial loses.

To read the review in full go to:-

http://insight.aon.com/?elqPURLPage=4613&elq=81299b19ced745d59ccc95c87744ba12

4. Brit Trucks Scarcer

From Robin Dickeson's admirable truck and haulage zine called Transport Brief comes this story:-

Fewer trucks to the mainland

The UK Department for Transport just published data on the number of vans, trucks and trailers going to mainland Europe from Great Britain for Quarter 2, this year. The figures show a 19% drop compared to the same period last year. Within the 590,000 vehicles there were 22% fewer unaccompanied trailers and 18% fewer trucks. 20% of the trucks were UK registered, up from the 19% for last year. Because the UK fails to properly register trailers, there seems to be no meaningful data on their origin. On a year to date basis, 2.49m, vans trucks and trailers went to mainland Europe last year, down 14% on the figure for the year ending at Q2, 2008. Both truck and unaccompanied trailer numbers were down too.

http://www.dft.gov.uk

5. NZ Clink

K. K. Chadha writes:-

NEW Zealand is to use containers to create a 60 bed prisoner unit at a cost of NZ$53,000 (US$36.416) to NZ$63,000 to be ready by next March at Rimutaka Prison north of Wellington.

In a report from New Zealand's Press Association Corrections Minister Judith Collins said the tender process for the first-of-its-kind project has begun and on budget with shipping containers being cheaper than building a new jail. "Corrections is forecast to run out of beds early next year. We have to take immediate action to ensure that prisoners are securely locked away and the public is kept safe," she said. Ms Collins said future jails may be built from containers with prisoners helping with the assembly.

Contact KK at:-

chadha@netvigator.com

6. And Finally...

Thanks to the House of Sydney lawyer Frazer Hunt for these:-

THOUGHTS OF A JEWISH BUDDHIST

Let you mind be as a floating cloud. Let your stillness be as the wooded glen. And sit up straight. You'll never meet the Buddha with posture like that.

There is no escaping karma. In a previous life you never called, you never wrote, you never visited. And whose fault was that?

Wherever you go, there you are. Your luggage is another story.

To practice Zen and the art of Jewish motorcycle maintenance, do the following: get rid of the motorcycle. What were you thinking?!

Be aware of your body. Be aware of your perceptions. Keep in mind that not every physical sensation is a symptom of a terminal illness. If there is no self, whose arthritis is this?

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Forget this and attaining Enlightenment will be the least of your problems.

The Tao has no expectations. The Tao demands nothing of others. The Tao does not speak. The Tao does not blame. The Tao does not take sides. The Tao is not Jewish.

Drink tea and nourish life. With the first sip: joy. With the second: satisfaction. With the third: Danish.

The Buddha taught that one should practice loving kindness to all sentient beings. Still, would it kill you to find a nice sentient being who happens to be Jewish?

Be patient and achieve all things. Be impatient and achieve all things faster.

To find the Buddha, look within. Deep inside you are ten thousand flowers. Each flower blossoms ten thousand times. Each blossom has ten thousand petals. You might want to see a specialist.

Be here now. Be somewhere else later. Is that so complicated?

Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkes.

P.S.

Courtesy of R Mulcahy in South Africa come these sayings of Steven Wright, who sees the world a little differently. He once said:-

"I woke up one morning, and all of my stuff had been stolen and replaced by exact duplicates."


Here are some more of his gems:

1 - I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.

2 - Borrow money from pessimists -- they don't expect it back.

3 - Half the people you know are below average.

4 - 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

5 - 82.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

6 - A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.

7 - A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

8 - If you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain.

9 - All those who believe in psycho kinesis, raise my hand.

10 - The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

11 - I almost had a psychic girlfriend, ...... but she left me before we met.

12 - OK, so what's the speed of dark?

13 - How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?

14 - If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

15 - Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.

16 - When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

17 - Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.

18 - Hard work pays off in the future; laziness pays off now.

19 - I intend to live forever.... so far, so good.

20 - If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?

21 - Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

22 - What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

23 - My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder."

24 - Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?

25 - If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

26 - A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.

27 - Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

28 - The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread

29 - To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.

30 - The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.

31 - The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.
32 - The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.

33 - Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don't have film.

34 - If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work?

BOW WAVE is published each week to over 15 000 Readers in the transport,insurance,shipping and finance industries.

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