1. ICMA XIX
2. Allianz Publishes Third Annual Review of Marine
3. The End of the Astra
4. Our Golden Age
5. Navigating Scylla and Charybdis
6. People and Places
FOB Network News
The current count of Members is 3681
A recent post to the the Heavy Lift and Project Cargo Group is a publication called Project Cargo Matters which is
a practical guide for shipowners and operators, produced by the UK Club and Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS) in association with London-based marine survey and consultancy firm Cwaves. It may be recalled by some how the link between Allianz and the UK Club was forged by the late Robin Travis in the 1980s, a time when cooperation between cargo and hull insurers and the P&I world was scarce.
http://www.ukpandi.com/fileadmin/uploads/uk-pi/LP%20Documents/Project_cargo_matters_proof_7.pdf
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1. ICMA XIX
Arthur Bowring writes:-
The organisation and arrangements for ICMA XIX are going extremely well, with over 200 delegates now registered and over 100 papers to be presented. The event is being organised by the Hong Kong Maritime Arbitration Group (HKMAG). This is presently an informal group of professionals resident in Hong Kong who are willing to be appointed as arbitrators or mediators to hear shipping or international trade disputes. The lists of HKMAG Arbitrators and HKMAG Mediators are found on the website of the Hong Kong Shipowners Association – by way of a direct link from the website landing page.
HKMAG has been formed as a division of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC) and it is intended that the group becomes more formal in its structure in the near future. HKMAG not only has the support of HKIAC for the organisation of ICMA XIX, but also has received good support from the Department of Justice, HKSAR Government, and the Trade Development Council. For more information about ICMA XIX, please visit the Congress website
http:// www.icma2015hongkong.org
2. Allianz Publishes Third Annual Review of Marine
A welcome instalment of this excellent publication lands in our inbox today. Marine insurers that set out to give a narative of the industry as a whole used to exist in some numbers, but those who set out to put some kind of intellectual skin and bones on the anecdotes of marine casualties throughout the world have grown rarer. The torch in the fixed marine market seems now to have passed to Allianz who have married up their long term industry abilities with good presentation, competent writers and good graphical designers. Well done to them.
Here is an extract from the notes sent to us by Jonathan Tilburn:-
Shipping losses continued their long-term downward trend with 75 reported worldwide in 2014, making it the safest year in shipping for 10 years, according to Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty SE’s (AGCS) third annual Safety and Shipping Review 2015, which analyzes reported shipping losses of over 100 gross tons.
The British Isles, North Sea, English Channel and Bay of Biscay has been the location of the most shipping casualties since 2005 (4,381). Nearly one in five of all incidents (18%) have occurred in this region. It was also the scene of the second highest number of casualties during 2014 (465), up 29% year-on-year. The East Mediterranean & Black Sea region was the top hotspot (490), up 5% year-on-year. Total losses in the British Isles and surrounding waters doubled year-on-year during 2014.
Over reliance on electronic navigation aids has caused a number of incidents in 2014. Captain Rahul Khanna said: “Inadequate training at grass roots level is to blame for this overdependence on e-navigation tools. The minimum standards have been met, but this is not good enough. We need to go above and beyond them to give robust training.”
The stability of car carriers has also been a focus of the International Maritime Organisation since the catastrophic capsizing of the passenger/car ferry Herald of Free Enterprise in March 1987. Movement of cargo on these types of ships can affect their stability and a large superstructure means that they are more susceptible to wind and bad weather. These worries surfaced again at the start of 2015 with an incident involving the 2000-built 51,770 gt pure car carrier Hoegh Osaka. Due to listing, the pilot onboard opted to deliberately beach the ship on the Bramble Bank in the Solent, off the Isle of Wight, UK. The cargo of 1,400 vehicles is reported to have included more than £1m of new BMW Minis and millions of pounds worth of JCB construction equipment.
Losses declined by 32% compared with the previous year and were well below the 10-year loss average of 127. Since 2005 shipping losses have declined by 50%. More than a third of 2014’s total losses were in two maritime regions. South China, Indo China, Indonesia and the Philippines (17 ships) and Japan, Korea and North China (12 ships). Cargo and fishing vessels accounted for over 50% of all losses.
The most common cause of total losses is foundering (sinking/submerging), accounting for 65% of losses in 2014 (49). With 13 ships wrecked or stranded, grounding was the second most common cause with fires/explosions (4) third, but significantly down year-on-year.
According to the report, there were 2,773 shipping incidents (casualties) globally (including total losses) during 2014. December is the worst month for losses in the Northern Hemisphere and August in the Southern Hemisphere. For every total loss in the Southern Hemisphere there are 7 in the Northern Hemisphere.
Read the report here:-
http://www.agcs.allianz.com/assets/PDFs/Reports/Shipping-Review-2015.pdf
3. The End of the Astra
Sarah Longden of Stone Chambers has passed us a copy of this case note by James Shirley:-
It has been almost two years since the decision of Flaux J in The Astra but finally all is well with the world again. On March 18th 2015, Popplewell J handed down judgment in Spar Shipping AS v. Grand China Logistics Holding (Group) Co., Ltd [2015] EWHC 718 (Comm), a case in which, as in The Astra, the result did not turn on whether the obligation to pay hire on time in an NYPE charter is a condition but in which the point had nevertheless been fully argued.
http://www.stonechambers.com/news-pages/19.03.15–article–the-end-of-the-astra—-james-shirley.asp
4. Our Golden Age
Courtesy of the Browser we learned of the round the world walker Paul Salopek who is interviewed by Ken Armstrong in the Marshall Project. Salopek is three years into his seven-year walk around the world starting in Ethiopia and ending in Tierra del Fuego. He has been stopped by police 42 times, including 17 stops in Turkey. He reports that the encounters have been generally encouraging. “If I’d tried this walk 500 years ago, I’d probably have been killed and dumped beside the trail many miles ago. I remind my readers: As bad as things seem, relatively speaking, we still live in a golden age of freedom of movement”
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/03/23/they-didn-t-believe-the-camels-were-ours
http://www.outofedenwalk.com/page/about/
http://outofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.com/
5. Navigating Scylla and Charybdis
Stefanos N. Roulakis, writing in the current edition of Mainbrace, the newsletter of Blank Rome, has supplied a helpful review of the new political landscape in Greece for shipping:-
To return home to Greece, the ancient mariner Odysseus had to navigate between the two sea monsters known as Scylla and Charybdis, using his resourcefulness to chart the safest course through the narrow channel of water separating the deadly mythological creatures. As the story suggests, shipping has been the mainstay of the Greek
economy since ancient times. Recently, shipping has been a target of political rhetoric for the newly elected leftist
SYRIZA party.
http://www.blankrome.com/siteFiles/Mainbrace-Mar15.pdf#page=17
6. People and Places
The partners of Begbies Traynor have written to us with news of the passing of Chris Morris:-
Chris had spent the day at Cheltenham Races, something he loved, with family and friends. He died in his sleep.Chris enjoyed an illustrious career being involved with ground breaking cases such as Laker Airways, BCCI and Polly Peck. He was still very active in our profession working on major cases with real enthusiasm. Chris was a very important member of the team here at Begbies Traynor and he will be missed by all of us.
Our condolences go to Chris’ sons Anthony and Dominic.
We understand that there will be a small family funeral followed by a memorial service in London in due course. If you would like details of that memorial service once arranged, please send a message we will pass your details to his family.
Bull Housser advises that they soon be in their new permanent offices at TELUS garden.
As of April 7, 2015, their new address will be:
1800 – 510 West Georgia Street
Vancouver, BC V6B 0M3
San Simón & Duch have opened a new offfice in Algeciras. It is headed by Ignacio Rodríguez Fraile, who is with the team at the disposal of all clients in all areas of Maritime, Transport and Insurance Law.
Australia’s oldest and largest marine pilotage company Australian Reef Pilots (ARP) has been bought by a consortium of its employees. ARP, which services all types of shipping through the Great Barrier Reef, has been sold by the private Brisbane-based company Torres Industries to a group of ARP executives and reef pilots. It employs 38 pilots at four working pilot stations, has 41 managerial and support staff, and owns or operates six pilot boats and five helicopters. ARP has been providing pilotage services on the Great Barrier Reef and Torres Strait for 126 years.
From the Avo Archive
The website of this newsletter contains all the editorial material since the inception of the Maritime Advocate as a print based quarterly in 1997 under the founding aegis of John Guy, Chris Hewer and Manfred Arnold. Readers can go to the site and search the database on the home page in its entirety. If you are looking for an old case, an old controversy or you would just like to see how many times you and your firm have featured in our annals feel free to access the archive. It is like this e-zine, free to Readers and we always appreciate the support of advertisers and sponsors.
Casting about for claims statistics, we ran across this reference from the Swedish Club in Issue 225 of
October 4th, 2005. Does we wonder this early innovator in the marine insurance world still have a mission to explain?
Medium-speed claims
MEDIUM-speed engines still account for a disproportionate number of major machinery
damage claims, according to a new study from The Swedish Club. The study, spanning claims during the six-year period 1998-2004, follows an earlier, ten-year study covering 1988-97. The new findings confirm that medium-speed engines remain over-represented in the club’s hull & machinery claims statistics. The average cost of main engine-related claims (on a per year/vessel basis) is four times higher for medium-speed engines, compared to low-speed engines.
www.swedishclub.com
http://www.avoarchive.com/searchBI.php
Wisdom of the Aged
Whether a man winds up with a nest egg, or a goose egg, depends a lot on the kind of chick he marries.
Trouble in marriage often starts when a man gets so busy earnin’ his salt, that he forgets his sugar.
Too many couples marry for better, or for worse, but not for good.
When a man marries a woman, they become one; but the trouble starts when they try to decide which one.
If a man has enough horse sense to treat his wife like a thoroughbred, she will never turn into an old nag.
On anniversaries, the wise husband always forgets the past – but never the present.
A foolish husband says to his wife, “Honey, you stick to the washin’, ironin’, cookin’, and scrubbin’. No wife of mine is gonna work.”
The bonds of matrimony are a good investment, only when the interest is kept up.
Many girls like to marry a military man – he can cook, sew, and make beds, and is in good health, and he’s already used to taking orders.
Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age, and start bragging about it.
The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.
Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know “why” I look this way. I’ve traveled a long way and some of the roads weren’t paved.
How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?
When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to your youth, remember about Algebra.
I don’t know how I got over the hill without getting to the top.
One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it is such a nice change from being young.
Ah, being young is beautiful, but being old is comfortable.
Old age is when former classmates are so gray and wrinkled and bald, they don’t recognize you.
If you don’t learn to laugh at trouble, you won’t have anything to laugh at when you are old.
[Source: Paul Dixon]
Poem
On the Re-Burial of King Richard III
The State has yet to come to terms
With opening a can of worms.
The State would rather he should fester
Than buried be again at Leicester.
Barrie Youde
23rd March.2015
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Maritime Advocate Online is a weekly digest of news and views on the maritime industries, with particular reference to legal issues and dispute resolution. It is published to over 15 500 individual subscribers each week and republished within firms and organisations all over the maritime world. It is the largest publication of its kind. We estimate it goes to around 45 000 Readers in over 120 countries.