BOW WAVE 709

Bow Wave Issue 709--Spring Light Edition

news and views on trade, insurance and risk

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Wavy Line	sam@wavyline.com
(c)2015 WavyLine.com	Issue No 709 13 Apr 15
Published free of charge to Readers
Editor: Sam Ignarski
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In this issue:

1. Welcome
2. P&I Clubs Contemplate Merger
3. IRU in the Spotlight
4. 2016 Cargo Conference
5. Where Old Planes go to Die
6. And Finally...

1. Welcome

Poem of the Week

The Panama Papers – The Answer

Give your savings a suntan. Send every penny offshore. It’s all transparently legal. It’s wholly allowed by the law. That’s why our leaders all do it. To set an example, d’you see? Avoidance of tax? Let’s poo-poo it. It all appears legal to me.
It’s why we haven’t a ship now. It’s why they’re all built overseas. It’s why every ship-operator may largely do as he might please: While here in Great Britain we need ‘em. We haven’t a clue who they are. Our families, we have to feed ‘em. And we should relax at the bar.
It’s your round, old chap – yes, by all means. Let’s have a repeat of the Bolly. Do common folk know what it all means? That we have just squandered the lolly? That nothing is in the Exchequer? That all of it’s gone down the grid? Old Lady Threadneedle? D’you check her? D’you think we should print a few quid?
This island we live on, as Britons – just how does our food now all get here? Sixty million of humanoid fit-ons. Survival? Is all now to let, here? Land-prices are rising, they tell me. It follows that so is the rent. I wonder which airline will sell me a seat to where savings are sent?
Upon a tropical island, I’m told that most things could be worse, Except that the fly-by-night whyland will lack any doctor or nurse. Should we open a bottle of Bolly? Or figure out where we are at? Which option is right? Which is folly? There’s only one answer to that!
Barrie Youde (8th April, 2016)

Readers Write

Canary Islands based P&I Correspondent Ida Stier writes:-

I wish to announce that our training centre CEMA has merged with our company Stier & Co/Stier Shipagency creating the Grupo Stier.

As such we've now launched a new training centre, 3000 square metres specialised in the offshore training which has successfully completed the OPITO process and now offer OPITO training in BOSIET, FOET, HUET & EBS and IMIST being the first one accredited in Spain.

For more information go to:-

http://www.stier.es/

Note from the Editor

Some Readers have been kind enough to ask about the hiatus in Bow Wave, a labour of love begun by your editor in November 1999. We have spent the time between Christmas and Easter less engaged by the online life and more preoccupied with other good things on our farm. We enter the spring in bonny health with many things to be thankful for, approaching forthcoming events and editions with zest.

Enjoy

2. P&I Clubs Contemplate Merger

The P&I renewal cycle ending with February 20th was in many ways the merest routine this year. Enlivened it was by the news which went the rounds that the Britannia Club and the UK Club and their managers are contemplating a merger. A much larger Club would result from a folding together. London might thereby recapture its place as the vital centre of the industry and shrug off the listlessness and drift which has invested the P&I movement in the metropolis. Your editor is long enough in the tooth to remember the exciting times of the late 1990s when change was much in the air. It takes a long time for nothing much to happen in the P&I Clubs. Back in the late 1990s, the work to merge the rising AIM listed Charles Taylor managed Standard Club with the excellent but slightly fuddy duddy Tindall Riley managed Britannia Club foundered against the reluctance of the Britannia Board of Directors. The reproach was heard in the places where P&I people convene that the Riley fellows had botched the job by trying to bounce their Board into a swift decision. So it goes.

Around about the same time, the partnership of Millers resolved itself into a private shareholding company, took a little investment from the UK Club and set itself on the road to reach sunlit uplands. Its Senior partner at the time saw emerging a new shareholder democracy. But the corporate reformers of their day were not entirely deft. A few years later Tindall Riley was sold to the Allianz; the UK Club was managed by a company majority owned by retired people and a few more years later its place as the largest P&I Club in the business was eclipsed by the Gard Club in Norway. Both Clubs and their Managers tried to introduce a hull insurance strand to their business without resounding success. After the longest shipping boom since the 1780s, both Clubs emerged short on capital.

We will observe events with interest in coming editions.

3. IRU in the Spotlight

The normally not very high profile International Road Union is in a pickle. According to Lloyd's Loading List, there is something going on. A touch perhaps of the FIFA malaise:-

"The International Road Transport Union (IRU), the global trade body that represents the road freight and passenger transport industry in more than 100 countries, has been rocked by accusations that its senior executives hid members’ funds totalling almost CHF530 million
(US$550 million) and of “opaque” financial structures and transactions.

Swiss newspaper Le Temps reports that a legal complaint has been lodged against Geneva-based IRU with Swiss judicial authorities by former employee Marek Retelski, who had worked for the IRU since 2001 and was latterly head of its TIR department, which is responsible for the management of the security payment system of TIR carnet fees from national road associations, until his dismissal in January.

Read this article in full here:-

http://tinyurl.com/TouchofFIFA

4. 2016 Cargo Conference

Christopher J. Dunn has asked your editor to remind Bow Wave Readers that this event is coming around in June

He says this is a conference that is open to all disciplines within the cargo transportation insurance process and its related service industries across the UK and International markets.

The target people are Underwriters, Risk Managers, Placing Brokers Claims Adjusters and Claims Brokers. The key purpose of the conference is to provide a platform for the education and professional development of all those within the marine cargo insurance community.

People we know who have attended this event in previous years speak highly of it. It is a chance for people at the sharp end to compare notes.

http://www.cargo-conference.co.uk/

5. Where Old Planes go to Die

One of the emerging voices we have run across in recent months is Dan Wang in San Francisco, who writes in a breezy and engaged tone on many subjects close to the hearts of Bow Wave Readers. In this essay, he has a look at the airframe boneyards of the world which have to be seen to be believed:-

"On average, an aircraft is operable for about 30 years before it has to be retired. A Boeing 747 can endure about 35,000 pressurization cycles and flights—roughly 135,000 to 165,000 flight hours—before metal fatigue sets in. 747s are retired after approximately 27 years of service. Early wide-body planes, like the Lockheed Tri-Star, have shorter lifespans, lasting an average of 24 years.

Grounded American airplanes, be it temporarily or permanently, go to the southwestern American desert: California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. The arid climate of these states slows down rusting. These boneyards are open-air storage sites for all sorts of aircraft, from retired commercial carriers to nuclear-capable B-52 bombers."

Read the article in full here:-

https://www.flexport.com/blog/decommissioned-planes-salvage-value/

6. And Finally...

From the House of Frazer Hunt, the well known Sydney lawyer comes this joke:-

A man walks into Ann Summers to purchase some see-through lingerie for his wife.

He is shown several possibilities that range from £50 to £150 in price, the more see-through, the higher the price.

He opts for the sheerest item, pays the £150 and takes the lingerie home.

He presents it to his wife and asks her to go upstairs put it on and model it for him.

Upstairs the wife thinks 'I have an idea. It's so see-through that it might as well be nothing. I won't put it on - do the modelling naked return it tomorrow and get a £150 refund an d keep the money for myself.’

So she appears naked at the top of the stairs and strikes a pose.

The husband says 'bloody hell, it wasn't that creased in the shop.'

His funeral is this Thursday.

Frazer sent us this one some months ago:-

Even though we didn't realize it at the time, most of the 50+++++ generation was HOME SCHOOLED……….!!!!!!!!!

1. My mother taught me TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE. "If you're going to kill each other, do it outside. just finished cleaning."

2. My mother taught me RELIGION.
"You better pray that will come out of the carpet."
3. My father taught me about TIME TRAVEL.
"If you don't straighten up, I'm going to knock you into the middle of next week!"

4. My father taught me LOGIC.
"Because I said so, that's why."

5. My mother taught me MORE LOGIC.
"If you fall out of that swing and break your neck, you're not going to the store with me."

6. My mother taught me FORESIGHT.
"Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you're in an accident."
7. My father taught me IRONY.
"Keep crying, and I'll give you something to cry about."
8. My mother taught me about the science of OSMOSIS. "Shut your mouth and eat your supper."

9. My mother taught me about CONTORTIONISM.
"Just you look at that dirt on the back of your neck!"
10. My mother taught me about STAMINA.
"You'll sit there until all that spinach is gone."
11. My mother taught me about WEATHER.
"This room of yours looks as if a tornado went through it."
12. My mother taught me about HYPOCRISY.
"If I told you once, I've told you a million times, don't exaggerate!"

13. My father taught me the CIRCLE OF LIFE.
"I brought you into this world, and I can take you out..."
14. My mother taught me about BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION. "Stop acting like your father!"

15. My mother taught me about ENVY.
"There are millions of less fortunate children in this world who don't have wonderful parents like you do."
16. My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION.
"Just wait until we get home."

17. My mother taught me about RECEIVING.
"You are going to get it from your father when you get home!"
18. My mother taught me MEDICAL SCIENCE.
"If you don't stop crossing your eyes, they are going to get stuck that way."

19. My mother taught me ESP.
"Put your sweater on; don't you think I know when you are cold?"
20. My father taught me HUMOR.
"When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don't come running to me."
21. My mother taught me HOW TO BECOME AN ADULT. "If you don't eat your vegetables, you'll never grow up."
22. My mother taught me GENETICS.
"You're just like your father."

23. My mother taught me about my ROOTS.
"Shut that door behind you. Do you think you were born in a barn?"
24. My mother taught me WISDOM.
"When you get to be my age, you'll understand.
25. My father taught me about JUSTICE.
"One day you'll have kids, and I hope they turn out just like you.

Your editor has lived and worked in a proper cargo city like Hong Kong and in a post modern metropolis like London where a mighty port has given way to modern habitation and lifestyle. So much change.

Our favourite blog about London features the old days on the river in pictures.

http://spitalfieldslife.com/2016/03/09/the-old-river-thames/

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:-

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Thanks for reading BOW WAVE