BOW WAVE 622

Bow Wave Issue 622--Dead Wood Edition

news and views on trade, insurance and risk

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Wavy Line	sam@wavyline.com
(c)2012 WavyLine.com	Issue No 622 05 Jan 12
Published free of charge to Readers
Editor: Sam Ignarski
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In this issue:

1. Welcome
2. Year of the Cat Loss
3. City of Angels runs Dirty Trucks out of Town
4. UK Live Animal Exports face Challenge
5. Helicopter Rescue
6. And Finally...

1. Welcome

Poem of the Week

Shoulders

A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south, because his son is asleep on his shoulder.

No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.

This man carries the world's most sensitive cargo but he's not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.

His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy's dream
deep inside him.

We're not going to be able
to live in this world
if we're not willing to do what he's doing
with one another.

The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling.

Naomi Shihab Nye (1994)

New Readers this week include:-

Ben Moke of the Port of Melbourne
Andrew Bach of insurance brokers Lucas Fettes
David Hesketh of What Where When Pte Ltd in Singapore. Geoff Graham and Steven Langley of Salvus Maritime Security

News of Readers

Danish Advokat Michael Villadsen has moved and founded together with a colleague a new law firm in Aarhus focusing on transport law. The firm is called Villadsen & Fabian-Jessing Advokater

Contact him at:-

mailto:michael.villadsen@transportlaw.dk

Dr Suresh Idnani has been honoured by the Judge's Special Award for Outstanding Services to Seafarers' Welfare at the 2011 International Seafarers' Welfare Awards held at the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Geneva. The ceremony, which took place on the opening night of the Maritime Labour Convention tripartite meeting, was hosted by Mr Michael Grey, former Editor of Lloyds List and attended by a number of key figures in the industry, including Mr Arthur Bowring, Managing Director, Hong Kong Ship Owners Association and Mr David Cockroft, General Secretary of the International Transport Workers Federation.

mailto:sureshidnani@hotmail.com

Readers Write

From Neville Smith

LTOPS comes of age with new venue for 2012 party

The London Tanker Operations Party (LTOPS) organising committee is pleased to announce that registration is open for its annual party on Friday January 27th 2012.

For the last two decades, tanker operations and claims managers have been gathering to celebrate the New Year at this exclusive event. For 2012 the party moves to the Honourable Artillery Company HQ in central London, due to unprecedented demand which has seen numbers rise above 700 in recent years.

Founded in the early 1990s, LTOPS has grown into a truly international affair, with attendees regularly flying in from across Europe and around the world. LTOPS has become the most prestigious and lively gathering in the tanker shipping community's calendar with world-wide networking appeal.

The party is now open for guest registration via the link below. Invitation is strictly limited to eligible tanker operations and claims professionals.

To register for LTOPS please visit:

www.ltopsevents.com/

mailto:neville.smith@marinercommunications.co.uk

Note from the Editor

Greetings from a stormy Isle of Wight, where environs Ignarski, high winds have blown over some large, but dead trees. We can think of quite a few organisations where it might be proper to hope that this early event in 2012 may be taken as a metaphor for the challenges ahead.

Enjoy!

2. Year of the Cat Loss

Apart from the general sense of gloom in maritime circles 2011, will remain in memory as the year when mother nature vented spite. The people at Munich Re, who follow these things with rare application say it is the worst year they have seen. Here is an extract from their laterst release:-

A sequence of devastating earthquakes and a large number of weather-related catastrophes made 2011 the costliest year ever in terms of natural catastrophe losses. At about US$ 380bn, global economic losses were nearly two-thirds higher than in 2005, the previous record year with losses of US$ 220bn. The earthquakes in Japan in March and New Zealand in February alone caused almost two-thirds of these losses. Insured losses of US$ 105bn also exceeded the 2005 record (US$ 101bn).

Torsten Jeworrek, Munich Re Board member responsible for global reinsurance business: "Thankfully, a sequence of severe natural catastrophes like last year's is a very rare occurrence. We had to contend with events with return periods of once every 1,000 years or even higher at the locations concerned. But we are prepared for such extreme situations. It is the insurance industry's task to cover extreme losses as well, to help society cope with such events and to learn from them in order to protect mankind better from these natural perils."
The year in figures

With some 820 loss-relevant events, the figures for 2011 were in line with the average of the last ten years. 90% of the recorded natural catastrophes were weather-related -- however, nearly two-thirds of economic losses and about half the insured losses stemmed from geophysical events, principally from the large earthquakes. Normally, it is the weather-related natural catastrophes that are the dominant loss drivers. On average over the last three decades, geophysical events accounted for just under 10% of insured losses. The distribution of regional losses in 2011 was also unusual. Around 70% of economic losses in 2011 occurred in Asia.

Some 27,000 people fell victim to natural catastrophes in 2011. This figure does not include the countless people who died as a result of the famine following the worst drought in decades on the Horn of Africa, which was the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of the year. Civil war and political instability made it very difficult to bring effective aid to the victims.
Read the complete release here:-

http://www.munichre.com/en/media_relations/press_releases/2012/2012_01_04_press_release.aspx

3. City of Angels runs Dirty Trucks out of Town

So it is farewell in LA to wildcat truckers--called drays-- racketing in and out of the port blowing black smoke to the sky.

We read in the estimable IFW that from 1 January, every local short-haul truck calling at the port of Los Angeles will meet the strictest clean air and safety standards of any major port in the world.

New Year’s Day 2012 is the milestone for the Clean Truck Program (CTP), the port’s initiative to reduce diesel particulate emissions from trucks serving the San Pedro Bay facilities by 89% in about three years.

As a result of the ban, 1,473 of the current drayage fleet of 11,772 trucks now serving the port of Los Angeles will retire from service on 1 January.

The port provided US$44 million in incentives to bring in 2,200 clean trucks -- more than 20% of today’s fleet.

LA also funded $12.5 million in incentives for natural gas-fuelled trucks, and more than $3.6 million more to reward companies for putting clean trucks into regular service at the port.

Emissions studies comparing overall emissions for 2010 with those of 2005 show a 92% reduction of sulfur oxides, an 89% reduction of diesel particulate matter, and a 77% reduction of nitrogen oxides --the primary pollutants associated with smog and unhealthy air.

Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Geraldine Knatz said: "The port of Los Angeles, along with our industry partners, has made the business of moving cargo cleaner. The results speak for themselves, and we couldn’t be more proud of reaching this milestone."

As part of its continued efforts toward clean air, the port is working on a commercially feasible zero emission truck that can be operated in full duty cycles in port operations.

[Recalling many visits to the port, I can well remember how local container collection and delivery was often supplied by owner-drivers hailing from south of border driving well worn trucks who were paid a pittance per lift. I guess their time is over]

http://tinyurl.com/boxdrays

4. UK Live Animal Exports face Challenge

The export of live animals (mainly carried out via the port of Ramsgate it seems) will face a new challenge with the launch of a campaign to ban such trades by Ms Joanna Lumley , a much loved comic actress who became a force to be reckoned with during the campaign supporting the claims of ex British Army Gurkhas to the right to settle in the UK. The Guardian story refers:-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/05/end-cruel-longdistance-livestock-journeys

5. Helicopter Rescue

From Paul Gunton, executive editor of Safety at Sea magazine:-

The clip below caught my eye today. Note the presence of two examples of what a chum of mine calls ‘the unsinkable man’: Only the kids are wearing lifejackets. My old sailing chum used to despair whenever he saw an overloaded dinghy making its way across the moorings with all the family except the chap at the helm wearing lifejackets. "There goes the unsinkable man," he’d announce.

In this instance, at least one of the kids had been asleep, yet had time to put on a lifejacket. So why didn’t the adults?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16421996

6. And Finally...

A good one from the House of Frazer Hunt:-

At a wine merchant in Canberra, the regular taster died and the director started looking for a new one to hire.

A ragged, dirty drunkard covered in flies and vomit came to apply for the position.

The director of the wine emporium wondered how to get rid of him.

They gave him a glass of wine to identify. That would soon sort him out.

He tried it and said, "It's a Rutherglen Muscat , three years old, grown on a slight northerly slope, matured in stainless steel with fair quality oak chips added to the ferment. Pretty low grade for Rutherglen, but commercially acceptable.

"That's correct", said the negotiant in astonishment. A lucky guess he thought.

Another glass was proffered to our inebriated salivator ....

"It's a warmish Cabernet Sauvignon with a not insubstantial dash of Cabernet Franc, eight years old, grown on a stony East north easterly slope, matured in high quality oak barrels in a cellar temperature of no more than 8 degrees. Probably Chateau Grande Puy la Coste 2003. Requires five more years for finest results.."

Amazed and gob-smacked, the boss was determined to best this upstart drunkard. Another glass was called for..

''It's a Fiano Noir, made entirely using natural methods. It's oxidised, full of VA and rancid with Brett. Very exclusive and very expensive and made for and by people. Even if it gives the noble art of the vigneron a bad name in industrial circles, it is probably your best cash flow this festive season because it tastes like wine. Can I 'av another?

The director-de-cave was astonished.

He winked at his young secretary to suggest a way out of the enormous embarrassment of having to offer the slob the job.

She left the room, and came back in with a glass of urine.

The alcoholic had a good sniff, swirl and spit....He continued....

"It's a blonde, 26 years old, three months pregnant and if you don't give me the job, I might have to name the father.!!

P.S.

Thanks to Paul Dixon for this one:-

Early one morning, a mother went in to wake up her son.

"Wake up, It's time to go to school!"

"But why, Mom? I don't want to go."

"Give me two reasons why you don't want to go."

"Well, the kids hate me for one, and the teachers hate me, too!"

"Oh, that's no reason not to go to school. Come on now and get ready."

"Give me two reasons why I should go to school."

"Well, for one, you're 52 years old. And for another, you're the Principal!"

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