BOW WAVE 516

Bow Wave Issue 516--Edition Regles

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(c)2009 WavyLine.com	Issue No 516 05 Oct 09
Published free of charge to Readers
Editor: Sam Ignarski
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In this issue:

1. Welcome
2. Quarterpoints for October 2009
3. Transport Trackers
4. Seasonal Claims
5. Vote for the Apostleship of the Sea
6. And Finally...

1. Welcome

Poem of the Week

Stoney Ridge Dance Hall

They don’t like strangers.

So be careful how you smile.

Eight generations

of Hungerfords, McGards and Staceys

have lived on this ridge

like incestuous kings.

Their blood is so pure

it will not clot.

This is the only

country they know.

There are men here

who have never heard of Canada.

When they tire of dancing

they go down the road

and drink white lightning

out of the bung

of a molasses puncheon.

But they never forget

to strap on the knuckles

they’ve made from beer bottle

caps and leather

and there are sharp spikes

in their orange logging boots.

Alden Nowlan

New Readers this week include:=

Michelle Otero Valdés of attornies Houck Anderson Andrew Myatt of London Marine Insurance Services
Hassan Abdennour
Sandra Speares of Godalming
Mike Martyn-Jones of Burness Corlett Three Quays

News of Readers

Michael Slavid has left Fortis for Avéro Insurance Belgium (Marine Dept) in Antwerp

Contact him at:-

michael.slavid@avero.be

After a long career in shipbroking in Southern Africa, Bruce Macdonald has retired and closed his company Brazenbulk Chartering.

Contact him at:-

sarahmac01@hotmail.com

Sandra Speares has taken up the occupation of freelance journalist

Contact her at:-

speares1@aol.com

AfterOfficeHours News

After Office Hours, the Emergency Contact Directory for people who need help quickly is now being accessed 150 times a day. Do you provide services to marine and transport insurers and shipping companies? Should your company be listed?

Very decent terms are currently available.

mailto:contactus@AfterOfficeHours.com

http:///www.AfterOfficeHours.com

Note from the Editor

Greetings from a cooler, rainier London where thoughts now turn to the short days ahead.

Our poet this week comes via the recommendation of Peter Jones, the forward looking founder of ForwarderLaw.com, who was passing through this week

Enjoy!

2. Quarterpoints for October 2009

Your editor's most recent column in Lloyd's List dwells on the carapace of pre-crisis regulation in post-crisis markets

Post Crisis Rethink

The opening of the the new law and academic terms, the drift from late summer to autumn, the procession of anniversary programmes about the fall of Lehman brothers, the UK party conference season all lend weight to the feeling that the new year begins as the evenings draw in and the leaves fall down rather than after the bleary post Christmas ceremonies on New Year’s eve. There is a strong sense in the City of London that we are living in a post crisis operational and regulatory world which grew up over the past ten years, before the crisis.

Since so much of the economy depends upon a healthy, profitable financial services industry and the shape of the world to come is already fairly visible, it would be prudent to look around and ask how much of the pre-crisis model we should carry forward into the future with us.

What are the features of life in this city which have grown up and helped to lend a sense of souring and creepiness to those of us who earn a crust here? There are a number which I can think of straight away. There is the sense (commented upon by the Adair Turner, the head of the FSA) that the financial services represent far too big a part of the country’s output, that the doers and makers in other parts of the economy are in retreat in the face of challenges from countries like India, China, Russia and perhaps a little surprisingly, Brazil.

There is a sense that the forces of surveillance and second guessing are high in the saddle and pressing down upon the health and dynamism of liberal commercial life. There is a waning in all fields of the attractive ethos of "Live and Let Live", an feature which over time has accounted for much of the attractiveness of these islands.

The Germans call the habit of back seat driving Besserwisserei. And indeed one of the great social, intellectual and regulatory growth stocks over the last ten years or so has been invested in the notion that primary activities in markets are helped and fostered by registration, monitoring, deeming, auditing, inspecting and critiquing by third parties. Organisations of commercial stamp are inured to the notion that "having the drains up" is a generally beneficial measure, of use to any organization which lives by its judgments. By primary activities we mean primary relations such as those between buyers and sellers, makers and users, suppliers and customers.

One of the bigger changes over the last ten years has come from governments and regulators who have become far more activist. Even in a self policing marketplace like Lloyd’s the work of the Corporation has evolved from supplying services and support to underwriters and moved on to the enforcement of rules, to the protection of the franchise and to the evolution of uniform method. This evolution was in response to the crisis of previous decades where results in the market were far more patchy.

But will it all be of avail in the post crisis world, in a world which is seeing the emergence of very new, very powerful economic forces? What in the world of the next decade or two will the mature economies do to make the best out of their dependence on things like services, design, innovation, performance in the face of the sickly state of finance, proclivity towards high taxation, the habit of requiring worker and citizen to comply with the elaborate regimes being designed for them by another mature economy growth sector --government and governance?

The challenging conservative party, whose card is marked to take over from the current holders of authority have already put up the notion that they would like to make changes in the way the regulators at the FSA ply their trade in relation to the financial sector. The devil in these matters will always be in the detail but there is plenty of work to be done to make the post crisis work of such agencies up to t he challenges ahead. A number of questions could be asked:-

* Is a high investment in compliance and regulation a good idea for an economy groping its way out of the current pickle it is in?
*Is there sufficient certainty, conceptually and operationally that the pre-crisis models we still have will avoid the next risk of falling into the trap of a busy fixation upon trees as the whole forest is catching fire? While the regulators evolved elaborated greater and greater compliance from the market, under their eyes a mile or two away in the same city, a unit of the AIG was about to bring down the largest insurance goliath in the world into hapless insolvency.
*Are the regulators leaving enough room for new industrial growth? How many barriers and requirements must be negotiated by newcomers in the industry who may in their different offerings have the seeds of new business empires within them? When there are too many the advantage lies with the exisiting, mundane, the well healed and the established. So far the emergence of new offerings and new entrants to the markets seems underwhelming, given the state of crisis which surrounded financial services a year ago.
*Is new work needed to understand the nature of the modern world? One of the biggest changes in almost every walk of life has been the emergence of the barbell shape. This barbell describes an activity which consists of a handful of extremely powerful players and hundreds or thousands of small, specialist or niche players with nothing much in the middle. Why does this matter? It matters because the rules and regimes prescribed for the one cannot be bearable for the other. For instance, the Attorney General of this country, Baroness Scotland was recently fined £5000 for failing to see and retain copies of documents offered by her prospective housekeeper, who turned out to an overstayed student. These rules were doubtless drafted to deal with large agencies and service companies, but they also applied personally, rather ironically, to the law officer who had helped to enact them. This disjunction between what is sensible for the large and small battalions is rather a large feature of post-modern and post-crisis life.

In the way we live in the future and in the shaping the industry of the future there needs to be more space, more air, more room to move than we have allowed ourselves during the years of the great credit boom.

3. Transport Trackers

Transport industry analyst Charles De Trenck has a website which contains his thoughts on recent trends in the container industry.There is a recent update on Maersk and slow steaming related issues and also a note on the rebound in volumes at "second tier" ports in China.

http://www.transport-trackers.com/

4. Seasonal Claims

The loss prevention people at the American Club have issued a circular to members dealing with that old menace moist ore fine cargoes. It notes there have been several recent losses of ships which have loaded iron ore fines during the Indian monsoon season.

When iron ore fines are loaded in the rain, or left uncovered on the quayside, they absorb significant amounts of water. This may not be readily apparent, since the surface of the iron ore may appear dry. High water content can cause the cargo to liquefy on board, and shift, creating a perilous situation for the vessel and crew.

The shipper of any cargo prone to liquefaction is obliged to provide details of the moisture content and the transportable moisture limit (TML) to the carrier. These should be kept for record purposes. The master and crew must remain vigilant and ready to question shippers if any doubt arises over the properties of a cargo.

The club recommends that masters apply the Code for Safe Practice for Solid Bulk Cargoes 2004. Companies should contact the local P&I correspondent over any problems. And it advises that members and ship masters should confirm with shippers the details of cargo as required under SOLAS Chapter VI (carriage of cargoes), regulations 2 (cargo information) and 7 (loading, unloading and stowage of bulk cargoes).

The ore stockpiles intended to be loaded should be identified so that surveyors can obtain samples for testing. These should be submitted to an approved laboratory for analysis of the cargo’s moisture content, TML and its flow moisture point. The cargo should only be accepted for loading if the moisture content is below the TML.

http://www.american-club.com/

5. Vote for the Apostleship of the Sea

John Green writes:-

The AOS Tyne Port Chaplaincy team have been shortlisted for a £5,000 award from the internet provider TalkTalk. Their ‘Digital Hero Award’ goes to charities using the internet in innovative ways. In our case, AOS Tyne port chaplain, Paul Atkinson, has been bringing on board ships, a laptop computer to help seafarers email family and loved ones back home during their short time in port. There are 3 shortlisted charities and to be eligible for the £5,000 AOS needs your vote!

Please go to:-

www.talktalk.co.uk/vote

select the North East, click on View Region, and press the vote button next to AOS chaplain Paul’s name. We need to get as many votes as possible to get through to the final round. This money will go towards ensuring the AOS team can continue helping seafarers make contact with family and loved ones back home, so please vote now! The closing date is Friday October 23.

6. And Finally...

According to Paul Dixon's Joke of the Day zine, the following are real conversations with directory enquiries operators, as revealed in interviews with staff at the Cardiff DE Centre. Hmmm.

* * *

Caller : I'd like the number of the Argoed Fish Bar in Cardiff, please. Operator : I'm sorry, there's no listing. Is the spelling correct? Caller : Well, it used to be called the Bargoed Fish Bar but the B fell off.

* * *

Then there was the caller who asked for a knitwear company in Woven. Operator : Woven? Are you sure? Caller : Yes. That's what it says on the label - Woven in Scotland.

* * *

Caller : I'd like the RSPCA please.

Operator : Where are you calling from?

Caller : The living room

* * *

Caller : The water board please.

Operator : Which department?

Caller : Tap water.

* * *

Operator : How are you spelling that?

Caller : With letters.

* * *

Caller : I'd like the number for a reverend in Cardiff, please.

Operator : Do you have his name?

Caller : No, but he has a dog named Ben.

* * *

Caller : The Union of Shopkeepers and Alligators please.

Operator : You mean the Amalgamated Union of Shopkeepers?

* * *

On another occasion, a man making heavy breathing sounds from a phone box told the worried operator: "I haven't got a pen so I'm steaming up the window to write the number on.

Via Perdition

Two girls were having coffee when one noticed that the other girl seemed troubled and asked her, "Is something bugging you? You look anxious."

"Well, my boyfriend just lost all his money and life savings in the stock market," she explained.

"Oh, that's too bad," the other girl sympathized. "I'm sure you're feeling sorry for him."

"Yeah, I am," she said. "He'll really miss me."

Why Men Are Not Cut Out to Write Advice Columns

Dear Ask John:

I hope you can help me. The other day, I set off for work leaving my husband in the house watching TV. My car started stalling and then it broke down about a mile down the road and I had to walk back to get my husband's help. When I got home, I couldn't believe my eyes. He was in our bedroom with the neighbor's daughter!

I am 32, my husband is 34, and the neighbor's daughter is 19. We have been married for ten years. When I confronted him, he broke down and admitted that they had been having an affair for the past six months. He won't go to counseling and I'm afraid I am a wreck and need advice urgently. Can you please help?

Sincerely,
Kate

- - -

Dear Kate:

Yes, I can almost surely help you. A car stalling after being driven a short distance can be caused by a variety of faults with the engine. Start by checking for debris in the fuel line. If it is clear, check the vacuum pipes and hoses on the intake manifold and also check all grounding wires. If none of these approaches solve the problem, it could be that the fuel pump itself is faulty, causing low delivery pressure to the injectors.

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