BOW WAVE 629

Bow Wave Issue 629--Teachers Edition

news and views on trade, insurance and risk

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Wavy Line	sam@wavyline.com
(c)2012 WavyLine.com	Issue No 629 27 Feb 12
Published free of charge to Readers
Editor: Sam Ignarski
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In this issue:

1. Welcome
2. Understanding Social Networking for the Maritime Classes
3. P&I Renewals Season Quiet
4. Casualty of the Week--Costa Allegra
5. Paper Video
6. And Finally...

1. Welcome

Poem of the Week

From, John Eagle, whose many qualities include a liking for writing poetry, comes this recent, rather decent effort:-

Last night. Last dream.

Last dream last night
I heard a voice
My fathers voice,
He said "Aha.."
As though he’d been trying
for some time
And I woke up.

After six years
He’d found a way
To speak to me
On a subconscious telephone
And I had cut him off.

I woke, put in earplugs
to try to sleep
and call him back.

Is there a queue in heaven
to use the telephone?

But that sleep
did not
would not
will not
come again

John Eagle (2012)

New Readers this week include:-

Jane Finlay of Heavy Lift Magazine
Dan Mercer of Iridium
Mathew Sheahan of Yachting World

News of Readers

Our friends over at the Shipowners’ Club have announced new appointments:-

Steve Randall takes up the post of Commercial Director -- Asia on the board of Shipowners’ Asia Pte Ltd, which manages the Singapore branch of the Club. His appointment will mirror Simon Swallow’s as Commercial Director on the board of The Shipowners’ Protection Limited (SPL) with whom he will closely collaborate. Steve will have specific responsibility for leading the development of the Club’s business in the Asia-Pacific region, and will retain his responsibilities as co-manager with David Heaselden of the Singapore branch.

Ian Edwards becomes Underwriting Director on the SPL board, taking over the leadership of the technical underwriting operation of the Club from Simon Swallow, setting and overseeing the implementation of the Club’s underwriting and pricing policies in collaboration with branch managers. Ian will retain his responsibilities as co-manager with Britt Pickering of the London branch.

Britt Pickering is appointed Claims Director on the SPL board cementing her position as global Head of Claims. She will retain her responsibilities as co-manager of the London branch.

Jeremy Slater becomes Underwriting Manager -- Singapore branch, reflecting the growing business underwritten through Singapore and the need to develop the management support of the branch. Reporting to Steve Randall, he will take over some of the underwriting management responsibilities which Steve has had until now.

By June of this year, Paul Smit will take up the post of Deputy Claims Manager, Singapore branch, in order to enhance the claims service and ensure that the speed and quality of claims handling is ever more responsive. He will provide management support to Mike Hammond, Claims Manager, as well as handling claims himself.

Rob Cook is promoted to Syndicate Claims Manager--UK and Rest of the World syndicate, London branch, taking over from Paul Smit.

We were very sad to learn of the death of Steve Herbert, the well known marine liability and P&I broker of London Special Risks.

QBE chief executive Frank O'Halloran is standing down in the summer to be replaced by the head of the Australia-headquartered insurer's global underwriting operations, John Neal.

O'Halloran, who was been in the position for 14 years, will retire on 17 August after a six month handover period to former Lloyd's underwriter Neal.

Vince McLenaghan, a long-time lieutenant of O'Hallaron, had been widely considered as a potential successor as chief executive, before his departure last summer as part of a restructuring of the insurer's Australian and Asia Pacific businesses

[Source:Peter Hastie's Insurance Insider]

Thomas Keller is leaving the TT Club and is presently gardening.

mailto:tg.keller@web.de

Note from the Editor

I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

-Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931)

Enjoy!

2. Understanding Social Networking for the Maritime Classes

Your editor's most recent contribution to Heavy Lift and Project Forwarding International examines the conservatism of industry and asks how the messy new frontier of online networking fits in. It is a patchy sort of borderland:-

The online edition is published in a rather swanky flip book which you can access via the link below.

http://tinyurl.com/hlpfiSOCNETs

3. P&I Renewals Season Quiet

After many years of rather volatile buyer behaviour, the shipowner and charterer members of P&I Clubs largely opted to stay where they were, reverting to ways which ante-dated the great upwave of shipping during the last decade. There were few high profile moves and what there was seems to have rebounded to the benefit of the UK and West of England Clubs which have endured a long series of renewals previously with nothing much to exult over. Sentiment favouring the holding Club also helped the North of England and Gard Clubs. By all accounts the negotiations were tough and late completion was a feature of the year. The rather small general increases were not easily evanded, and the Standard and Steamship Mutual Clubs emerged as the tough guys of the season. Owners had this year no real stomach for release calls and poor record operators endured increases ranging from 20 to 40 per cent. Diamentides and Marinakis flew the flag in a thin year for itchy Hellenic feet.

The gods of fortuity saw to it that the renewal of the International Group's reinsurance with a discount preceded by a day the thought inducing loss of the Costa Concordia. But the chunky costs coming home also for the MSC Rena ensure that the reinsurers are not exactly slow in asking for quite a bit more for all the "takeouts" which are being closed in these days. The Indian Summer for Club losses may not with confidence be sighted in 2012.

Also, brokers RFIB note in their Grapevine zine:-:

The timing of the Costa Concordia accident was unfortunate as the placing of the reinsurance renewal contract was not complete at that time. In subsequent negotiations with those reinsurers who had not yet been approached on the renewal and those who had, it has now been revealed that the clubs agreed to pay an additional premium of some USD40 million, as it is expected that the claim on reinsurers following the casualty to the Italian flag cruise ship will be considerable. The clubs have not changed the excess reinsurance rates for 2012/13 which were originally announced, following the increase in cost. But, no doubt, they will be seeking to recoup the additional premium from members at the time of the 2013/14 renewal.

4. Casualty of the Week--Costa Allegra

We saw the following item in Maasmond Maritime's Daily Maritime Press Clippings Zine edited by Piet Sinke at the Hook of Holland:-

Onboard fire cripples Costa cruise ship

Costa Allegra, with 636 passengers on board, stranded in Somali pirate waters

A cruise liner owned by the same company as the Costa Concordia, which ran aground off Italy last month, is cloaked in darkness and adrift in the Indian Ocean on Monday after a fire in the engine room left it without power.

The fire on the Costa Allegra was quickly extinguished and "there were no injuries or casualties," said Costa Cruises in a statement. However, the ship is stranded about 200 miles southwest of the Seychelles, an area where Somali pirates have been active.

The ship is drifting with no power, but the situation is calm and the captain has assembled the passengers on the decks of the ship," Giorgio Moretti, the head of Costa Cruises nautical operations, told reporters in a conference call.

There is light aboard ship thanks to an emergency battery but no air conditioning or cooking facilities, so passengers will be given bread, water and some fruit until a helicopter arrives on Tuesday morning with more provisions, Moretti said.

The company said the ship is about 20 miles from Alphonse Island, one of the atolls in the Seychelles, a nation of islands and atolls that is a popular tourist destination. The general region where the cruise ship was adrift-- off the coast of Tanzania--has seen a rash of attacks by Somali pirates, but they have never hijacked a cruise ship. A Seychelles official said armed guards are on board the cruise ship. She said that is standard practice for cruise ships "these days." "If pirates attack, the armed guards on board will respond. But as far as I am aware, no pirates have been sighted in the area," said Seychelles presidential spokeswoman Srdjana Janosevic. The Costa Allegra has 636 passengers--including 8 Americans--and 413 crew on board. Crew were working to "restore functionality" to the ship and tugs and other support vessels were on their way to offer assistance, Costa Cruises said. The accident aboard the Costa Allegra occurred about six weeks after the Costa Concordia ran aground off the Italian island of Giglio on Jan. 13, killing at least 25 people. Seven passengers remain missing. The ship's captain was arrested and several other officials were placed under investigation. On Monday, Italian coast guard officials dispatched cargo ships near the Costa Allegra to help. Tug boats from the island nation of Seychelles also were steaming to the powerless ship. But the tugs were not expected to reach it until Tuesday afternoon at the earliest, and a top Seychelles military official said he could not yet say when the cruise ship might be brought back to port. The Allegra had left northern Madagascar, off Africa's southeast coast, on Saturday and was cruising toward the port of Victoria, Seychelles' capital, when the fire erupted. Costa said the Allegra had been due in Victoria on Tuesday. The Allegra was built in Italian shipyards in 1992, is 615-feet long, has eight passenger decks and 399 cabins. Source : msnbc.com

[Underwriters may not be so surprised at this news, knowing as they do, frequently at their cost, that casualties, like buses on the roads of London do not arrive in equal, regular instalments, but tend to bunch up. Such are the laws of statistics--ed]

http://www.maasmondmaritime.com/Inschrijven.aspx

5. Paper Video

Courtesy of the Browser, we ran across this rather fine road video, an animation compiled out of 12 000 individual paper cut outs, all to accompany Josh Ritter's song. Such imagination. And multimodal to boot.

http://vimeo.com/36873964

6. And Finally...

The Texas Factor

A Texan, while visiting Toronto, found himself in the back seat of a taxi cab on the way to his hotel. Passing by the Royal York the Texan asked the cab driver "What's that building there?" "That's the Royal York Hotel" replied the cabbie. "The Royal York? How long did it take to build that?" asked the Texan. "About 12 years" replied the cabbie.

"12 years? We build 'em twice as high, twice as wide and four times as long down in Texas, and we do that in six months."

A while later the cab driver makes his was past the Metro-Toronto Convention Centre. "What's that building over there?" asked the Texan. "That's the Metro-Toronto Convention Centre" replied the cabbie. "Convention Centre? How long'd it take to build that?" asked the Texan. "About three years" replied the cabbie. "Three years? We build 'em twice as high, three times as long and four times as wide as that down in Texas, and it only takes us about two weeks."

Shortly thereafter the cabbie drives past the CN Tower. "What's that building there?" asks the Texan, pointing at the tower. "Danged if I know" replied the cabbie, "It wasn't here when I drove by yesterday."

P.S. Words for our Times

Blamestorming - Sitting around in a group discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

Chainsaw Consultant - An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee headcount, leaving the top brass with clean hands.

Percussive Maintenance - The fine art of knocking the dickens out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

Uninstalled - Euphemism for being fired. Heard on the voicemail of a vice president at a downsizing computer firm: "You have reached the number of an uninstalled vice president. Please dial our main number and ask the operator for assistance." See also Decruitment.

SITCOMs - What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids. Stands for Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage.

Starter Marriage - A short-lived first marriage that ends in a divorce with no kids, no property and no regrets.

Tourists - People who take training classes just to get a vacation from their jobs. "We had three serious students in the class; the rest were just tourists."

Alpha Geek - The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group. "Ask Larry, he's the alpha geek around here."

Dancing Baloney - Little animated GIFs and other Web F/X that are useless and serve simply to impress clients. "This page is kinda dull. Maybe a little dancing baloney will help."

Flight Risk - Used to describe employees who are suspected of planning to leave a company or department soon.

Generica - Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is. "We were so lost in generica, I actually forgot what city we were in."

Nyetscape - Nickname for AOL's less-than-full-featured Web browser.

PEBCAK - Tech support shorthand for "Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard." (Techies are a frustrated, often arrogant lot. They 've submitted numerous acronyms and terms that poke fun at the clueless users who call them up with frighteningly stupid questions. Another variation on the above is ID10T: "This guy has an ID-Ten-T on his system.")

Square-headed Girlfriend - Another word for a computer. The victim of a square-headed girlfriend is a "computer widow."

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