BOW WAVE 680

Bow Wave Issue 680--Arrivederci 2013

news and views on trade, insurance and risk

Bow Wave homepage
Previous issue (679) / Current issue / Next issue (681)

Wavy Line	sam@wavyline.com
(c)2014 WavyLine.com	Issue No 680 08 Jan 14
Published free of charge to Readers
Editor: Sam Ignarski
Subscribe	Unsubscribe

In this issue:

1. Welcome
2. Reflections on the 2013 P&I Renewal Season
3. Japan's Tsunami--Two Years On
4. Beware the Shipping Hydra
5. So Farewell to the List on Paper
6. And Finally...

1. Welcome

Poem of the Year

Secret of Life

Once during the war
on a bus going to Portsmouth
a navy yard worker
told me the secret of life.

The secret of life, he said,
can never be passed down
one generation to the other.

The secret of life, he said,
is hunger. It makes an open hand.

The secret of life is money.
But only the small coins.

The secret of life, he said,
is love. You become what you lose.

The secret of life, he said,
is water. The world will end
in flood.

The secret of life, he said,
is circumstance.

If you catch the right bus
at the right time
you will sit next
to the secret teller

who will whisper it
in your ear.

Diana Der-Hovanessian (1994)

(Appeared in Issue 559)

A note on New Readers in 2013:-

Joiners and Leavers balanced each other out this year. Bow Wave began at a time when social networks did not really exist and at a time in the life of your editor when it seemed important to stay in touch with the world.

The zine goes out to around 16 000 individual addresses in around 120 countries. We estimate that the zine is read by around 45 000 individuals. In many firms Bow Wave is circulated internally. Our Readers have been very good to us over the years. They act as our promotion department by passing Bow Wave on to new Readers.

News of Readers

Many thanks to Readers who send in their news. Item 1 in Bow Wave altogether contains what we call our village news-marine insurance being a kind of village which for reasons of the needs of trade is distributed around the globe. Item 1 is very carefully read. It mostly compiles itself because Readers are kind enough to send in their news.

FOB News

An interesting item came our way this week on the Dunbar number, a theory by an Oxford academic of the same name which says that the human brain copes well with around 100 to 150 close relationships. The example given is the sort of person you would feel comfortable joining for a drink after meeting them unexpectedly in a bar. Of course close relationships in domestic life and work life differ, work relationships occupying mostly some place on the spectrum between stranger and friend. We do not fret that the FOB Network builds slowly and the groups attract members according to the enthusiasms of the people in them. We feel comfortable with saying that the FOB Network contains people of whom you might have heard. It might be said that it was designed for the Dunbar number

Read the interesting piece on Dunbar numbers here:-

http://tinyurl.com/bzbead6

(Issue 560)

Registration is gratis for individuals. Businesses can take out a page for a small supporting contribution and we welcome firms prepared to sponsor Group pages or advertise with us. This helps to keep FOB a going concern and puts a smile on the face of our programmers and accountants..

FOB is a project designed to adapt the new ways of using the internet for the sorts of people who read Bow Wave.

You are welcome to join

http://www.fobnetworking.com

Note from the Editor

Greetings and Happy New Year. Newly ambulant and no longer Isle of Wight Bound, this edition finds your editor in forward plannning and gadabout modes. This edition is a sort of reprise of the year past with favorite pieces included which somehow stand out in memory. Readers who like meandering around the past editions can always go to our website where an archive of all 680 editions of Bow Wave is lodged.

Enjoy!

2. Reflections on the 2013 P&I Renewal Season

We have been writing about the marine mutuals since 1999. This review describes an industry which is going through long term transitions.

It is usual for your editor to comment as the dust clears on the renewal of the P&I industry which famously falls upon the 20th of February each year. This has been a very difficult year for the industry as it set out to fight in the difficult terrain of restive reinsurers and hard up shipowners. It is a saturated and well researched market where little meaningful happens in one single year, where trends take five or ten years to manifest themselves. One metaphor which seems to apply is that the Clubs are locked into an isometric exercise, like opposing like, with only little movement to see with the naked eye.

All the same there are always themes which can be identified. This was the renewal when the Clubs which had grown rapidly over the past ten years needed to replenish their money cheasts more urgently than their slower moving peers. Both Brittania and North fell into this category. The West and the UK Club which in past years laboured against poor underwriting results and entropy were better placed, asking for less and for a change, looking attractive to restive owners.

Time was when this point in calender saw a series of announcements from the Clubs which added together reported on a market which added up to 120 per cent of its actual size. Losses were underreported and gains announced with gusto. The dean of reporters on P&I renewals, Jim Mulrenan of Tradewinds, always the best informed, supplied the finer print of who was in or out of the Clubs, giving an exceptional insight into what is normally a very tight lipped industry. Mulrenan has again supplied the news, weaving the runners and riders amongst the shipowners into a narrative about where the Clubs stand in relation to each other. Over the years, the old order amongst the Clubs has changed with the Gard Club pulling well ahead of the field, the North emerging as a major power, the Brittania growing from a large base and the old established leader, the UK Club loosing its foothold atop the ladder, a position which hitherto had not changed in the lifetimes of most in the industry. In this field as in so many others in our times, old orders are upset. The most cerebral broker commentary,by PL Ferrari, characterised a certain disconnect between the Clubs and the shipping industry.

But it is never very easy to say where we are after any given renewal season. The churn became more influential in the last ten years. The inordinate loyalty of owners to their individual Clubs has weakened somewhat, and the shift of world economic and shipowning power has added pressure to the Club world which still has far too many of its eggs located in European baskets, far from where most of the action is. So far as the London Clubs are concerned, we continue to wonder whether a kind of Detroit syndrome has taken root. Clubs in the Metropole continue to fight the good fight, taking lumps out of each other, while the buyers continue to decamp to more attractive suppliers in places like Arendal Gothenburg or Newcastle. In the great financial centre of London where P&I once had its centre of gravity they ought to be asking themselves more urgently for why. While price is usually blamed, this does not really explain why the traditional home of Clubs looks so jaded.

Word has it that the Gard, the UK Club and the Skuld had good acquisitive renewals. Gard increased its lead, the North under pressure held its second place and the UK Club piled on new tonnage. It needs another 7 million tons to climb to second place, much more to regain its old place in the sun. The West had a good renewal, the Swedish Club not. As for the rest--"as is" renewals seem to be the order of the day. But your editor well recalls annual memos describing lost ground as "by and large more or less the same as last year" which in the light of hindsight bear the unmistakable hallmarks of denial. A series over the years of "more or less as is" renewals in a growing industry describes long term relative decline in an individual Clubg. In a contracting market the slope is steeper.

The world of small ships has become hyper competitive. Shipowners did well, BMM was assailled on many sides, often by former executives once employed by QBE now with Lodestar and Skuld at Lloyd's. The owners of small ships are faced with a growing cast of eager offerors.

(Issue 663)

3. Japan's Tsunami--Two Years On

We ran across these striking before and after pictures from the Atlantic Monthly which shows areas at the time of the natural disaster and the often barren looking locations of the present time. The labour of clearing away is plain to see but the reconstruction has often not really begun.

http://tinyurl.com/tsunamipix

(Issue 664)

4. Beware the Shipping Hydra

[We have always been proud to run strong opinion pieces in Bow Wave. This was one of our better pieces which raised a decent storm of feedback]

A shipping PR maven writes:-

The media’s coverage of shipping has probably never been better thanks to the digital era even though it’s still regarded as a little understood backwater by the traditional newspapers and broadcasters.

Social media, the internet and sharing sites such as Linkedin and FOB Network have meant that for its own community at least, shipping is actually being discussed more than ever before.

The traditional maritime media has also reacted to this era of Perestroika and now produces in depth and articulate news and commentary on such issues as freight rates, shipping company debt, vessel detentions and other controversial topics. Even the confidential world of the P&I Clubs now comes under scrutiny - to the benefit of the whole shipping community.

The shipping trade and technical/business media plays a vital role in this -- as much as the brokers who have traditionally been the conduits for such bespoke commercial information. But unlike the brokers, whose commercially sensitive ‘breaking’ news and information is largely confined to client only release, the shipping media has the ability to raise matters of industry/public interest in a more independent and questioning manner.

Unlike the broking houses, which have a direct commercial interest in serving their owner-charterer clients, shipping companies are not the shipping media’s direct paymasters. In theory, the principle of publishing without fear or favour should prevail. Admittedly the owner-media relationship is still symbiotic; the trade and technical media do need the industry’s patronage for subscription sales, advertising and sponsorship to make a living.

But the past decade or so has seen far livelier independent, high quality reporting of the industry both online and via the traditional media outlets.

Shipping has never been under more scrutiny than it is today thanks to the Green debate, the need for greater fuel efficiency and a host of other environmental issues which directly affect owners and their ability to operate vessels. Shipping is under the spotlight. An independent, inquisitive media can play a significant role in the debate on these issues and has a central part to play in articulating the views of the industry in a fair and open manner. Likewise, the burgeoning army of shipping PR folk with industry knowledge and an understanding of the issues can play a real advocacy role on behalf of their clients and the industry as a whole.

Industry leaders have long bemoaned shipping’s lack of a clear, independent voice to represent them at the high tables of government and with administrations and regulators. The industry generally does not lobby well. So in a separate but equal sense both an independent trade and technical shipping media and specialist shipping public affairs advisors should both be right at the centre of the current industry debates, stimulating and provoking the conversation.

Sadly the debate is being skewed and limited in many ways , partly through the industry’s own naiveté on public affairs issues and partly by the rise of a new breed of hydra: the independent industry journalist/reporter who doubles up as a public relations guru.

Only in the shipping industry is this strange hybrid creature tolerated. It would be inconceivable for the editor of Computer Week to double up as a paid advocate for Apple products. It would be impossible for the editor of the Financial Times to be a media advisor to the Bank of England. But in shipping, this conflicted behaviour occurs every day. This is a disservice to the shipping industry because the hybrid journalist-PR guru never declares an interest.

The media he works for remains silent as to whether the articles the industry reads and often depends on -- are written independently by journalists seeking and disseminating information truthfully without fear or favour - or by PR people pushing a certain line , agenda , product or service - and being paid by a client do so.

Because there is seemingly no perceived conflict between independently produced journalism and PR spin, can the industry rely on the veracity of what it reads in the shipping media?

Can business decisions be taken on the basis of what is written and how accurate are the perceptions formed by what readers digest? Is that hard hitting editorial you’ve just shared on Linkedin the result of an inquiring piece of independent journalism? or is it a PR line pushed by a Classification Society, for example?

In the shipping media, it’s never clear.

It seems as if the new generation of fearless, inquiring shipping journo-cum-PR spin doctor is totally accepted by the industry as a unique animal. In the maritime world as in Greek mythology, there really is such a monster as a double headed hydra after all.

Not only does the rise of the shipping hydra taint the editorial process and the independent media, it also corrupts the PR-advisory side of the equation.

How do genuine PR practitioners, who represent clients to media in an open and transparent way, compete with the super-journo PR guru? After all, the Journo-PR guru will always pull the ultimate PR client hook line stunt - "Of course the newspaper will cover your story--because I will write the story " (then you can pay me and so too will the newspaper!!) --it’s the ultimate win for any shipping company which has ever considering using a PR firm!

Why use an independent PR firm when we can hire the double headed Shipping Hydra ? This behaviour, which is accepted by many shipping industry leaders--and sadly by many senior shipping media editors too -- represents a gross and internalised conflict.

It does the industry’s image a grave disservice and is sadly a major reason why shipping as a global industry is so far away from having a coherent, grown-up ,articulate and genuinely independent voice to the wider world.

The future of the shipping industry is too important for this behaviour to continue. As long as there is confusion over what is genuine editorial news, comment and opinion and paid-for public relations spin, shipping’s shadowy and often tawdry image will persist in the wider business world. We owe it to ourselves to change this situation.

[Issue 668]

5. So Farewell to the List on Paper

Around the time the next edition of Bow Wave appears, the paper version of Lloyd's List will be no more. This follows the announcement that Lloyd's List would be available only in digital format after 20 December 2013. The management of the paper having surveyed their customers, found only 25 were using the print version only.

So it is farewell to the oldest daily printed newspaper in these islands. The paper began in 1734 and of course continues online going forward.

Your editor began reading the List online in Hong Kong, sometime in the early 1990s when the download time was of patience-stretching length. But this limitation of the bandwidth available at the time easily compensated for the two or three days it otherwise took for the printed paper to arrive.

There is no doubt that the virtual edition of the List represents the best future it may have. A cakewalk does not await the publishers as there are some very good online publications out there dedicated to the marine and transport world and freed of its inky complications the List will have to become more central to readers in places outside the traditional and historical reach of newprint distributors in London. The readership in say South America or East Asia can certainly stand more specialist attention from the writers and editors of the List.

There are in this kind of publishing only two real jobs which have to be done, the job of the writer and the job of the advertising seller. Both are vital for any online publication.

As for the editorial line of the paper, your editor, at the beginning of writing columns for the paper can recall asking what the editorial policy of Lloyd's List might be. The dean of shipping editors responded with an excellent reply:- Support the Good Owner.

(Issue 678)

6. And Finally...

It is amazing how quickly jokes emerge on the internet in response to events. Jeremy Bolger supplied these equine ones:-

Within hours of the news that Tesco's 'all beef hamburgers' contained 30% horse meat these quips hit the internet:-

I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse.....

Anyone want a burger from Tesco? Yay or neigh?

Not entirely sure how Tesco are going to get over this hurdle.

Waitress in Tesco asked what I wanted placed on my Burger. So I had a £5 bet each way!

Had some burgers from Tesco for my tea last night.... I still have a bit between my teeth.

A woman has been taken into hospital after eating horse meat burgers from Tesco -
Her condition is said to be stable.

Tesco are now testing all their vegetarian burgers for traces of unicorn!

"I've just checked the Tesco burgers in my freezer...AND THEY'RE OFF"

Tesco now forced to deny presence of zebra in burgers, as shoppers confuse barcodes for serving suggestions.

Said to the missus these Tesco burgers have given me terrible trots.

To beef or not to beef.
That is equestrian.

A cow walks into a bar.
Barman says 'why the long face?'
Cow says 'Illegal ingredients, coming over from France are stealing our jobs!'

I hear the smaller version of those Tesco burgers make great horse d'oeuvres.

These Tesco burger jokes are going on a bit.
Talk about flogging a dead......agggghhh NO! NO! NO!

(Issue 663)

Quips and Quotes

[This list of jokes which appeared in July demonstrates the idees fixees of Bow Wave which regularly appear

Traffic sign in Florida mobile-home park: GO SLOW ... GRANDPARENTS AT PLAY

Sales clerk to customer:
"These stretch pants come with a warranty of one year or 500,000 calories... whichever comes first."

Woman huddled under blanket on deserted, wind-swept beach to husband: "Tell me again how much money we're saving with this off-season deal."

Man is the only animal that goes to sleep when he's not sleepy and gets up when he is.
--Dave Gneiser

A good answer is what you think of later.
--Sam Ewing

The closest to perfection a person ever comes is when he fills out a job application.
--Ken Kraft

No one appreciates the value of constructive criticism more thoroughly than the one who's giving it.
--Hal Chadwick

My wife and I have structured conversations:
firstly, she gives me her opinion, then she gives me my opinion.

My home church welcomes all denominations, but really prefers tens and twenties.

I'm weird, but around here it's barely noticeable.

The mother of three notoriously unruly youngsters was asked whether or not she'd have children if she had it to do over again. "Sure," she replied, "but not the same ones."

Everyone should have a spouse, because there are a number of things that go wrong that one can't blame on the government.

I accept good advice gracefully --
as long as it doesn't interfere with what I intended to do in the first place.

I wrote this poem about 15 years ago in Ireland. In those days, that country was so strict you used to have to smuggle condoms through the airport in bags of heroin.
--Punk poet John Cooper Clarke

Never hit a man with glasses.
Hit him with a baseball bat.

Thesaurus: ancient reptile with excellent vocabulary.

The majestic equality of the law... forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal bread.
--Anatole France

There is nothing more frightening than ignorance in action. --Goethe

Fighting for peace is like making love for virginity.

I like pigs.
Dogs look UP to us.
Cats look DOWN on us.
Pigs treat us as EQUALS.
--Winston Churchill

Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm schizophrenic, and so am I.
--Frank Crow

If you cannot change your mind, are you sure you have one?

Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at maths.

Puritanism:
The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be having a good time.

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.

If things get better with age, I'm approaching magnificent!

Sacred cows make the best burgers.

You're so open-minded, your brains fell out

You might as well take all of me -- the parts you want aren't removable.

I have an open mind -- it's just closed for repairs.

At least dogs do what you tell them to do. Cats take a message and get back to you.

I've gotta be me -- everyone else was already taken.

Do not meddle in the place of dragons ... you are crunchy and taste good with catsup.

Resentment is like taking poison and hoping the other person dies.

We occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of us pick ourselves up and hurry on as if nothing happened.

Film Clips of 2014

In the pleasant town of Bermagui in New South Wales, spectators congregate to watch a fishing charter boat demonstrate why naval architects are so influential.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfj5sOTgMpc&feature=player_embedded

Aerial view of the Costa Concordia Salvage Site

This clip of film, which we heard about via the excellent gCaptain zine rather demonstrates how life is about to change for anything or anyone within range of a model helicopter:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ESYr2y-WOeE

Portrait of a Port City

This is Shanghai:-

http://vimeo.com/63635193

Many of us live in societies under almost constant video surveillance. This clip suggests awareness does not breed content.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Uz8PdALdQDI#at=267

BOW WAVE is published each week to over 16 000 Readers in the transport,insurance,shipping and finance industries. It is free to Readers but you can support it as a going concern by subscribing as a business member to:-

http://www.fobnetworking.com

Thanks for reading BOW WAVE