IN THIS ISSUE
1. Yangoon or Hong Kong?
2. Bankruptcy and its Effect on In Rem Cases
3. Container Owners Association
4. Inter Regional Asia Pacific Mass Rescue Workshop
5. The Influence Of Railways On Military Operations
6. People and Places
FOB Network News
Searching for Group Sponsors
Some FOB Groups already have sponsors – for example JLT (P&I), Bloomfield Law (West Africa Maritime), Chalos (Criminalisation). the Publishers are also looking for sponsors for existing Groups for example Hull & Machinery, Salvage, Piracy, Maritime Singapore/Cyprus/Norway, Superyachts, Surveyors and Major Casualty Investigation.
In addition there is plenty of scope for possible new Groups such as War Risks, Multi-Modal Insurance, Energy Insurance and many geographical areas eg Maritime New Zealand/Germany to name but a few.
1. Please join FOB, and
2. Let us know if you would like a quote for sponsoring a Group
1. Yangoon or Hong Kong?
The latest edition of Chans Advice, published by specialised freight and transport brokers Sun Mobility, carries news of the decision by the Hong Kong Court of Appeal in the case of the Kappa Sea, an upholding of the decision in the court of first instance declining jurisdiction in Hong Kong in favour of Yangoon.
Law Report:-
https://tinyurl.com/KappaSeaLa
http://www.sun-mobility.com/fi
http://www.sun-mobility.com/fi
2. Bankruptcy and its Effect on In Rem Cases
Stan Loosmore writes:
I think readers of The Maritime Advocate Online would be interested to know that the Ninth Circuit court of appeals recently issued an opinion that made a significant change in the procedures when the owner of a vessel under arrest or about to be arrested files a petition in bankruptcy. This holding is directly contrary to the existing case law in the Second Circuit but there probably are not enough of these cases to warrant one of them getting to the Supreme Court:-
In the Ninth Circuit if a verified complaint in rem has been filed and a warrant for arrest issued, filing of a bankruptcy petition will have no effect on the in rem case. In Barnes v. Sea Hawaii Rafting LLC, 889 F.3d 517 (9th Cir. 2018), the Court of Appeals reversed the District Court’s dismissal of a seaman’s claims in admiralty against a vessel in rem, holding that a Federal District Court obtains in rem jurisdiction over a defendant vessel when a verified complaint is filed and a Warrant for Arrest is issued and that a subsequent petition in bankruptcy, whether for liquidation or reorganization, does not divest the court of that jurisdiction. Read a more complete discussion of this opinion at:-
https://www.arrested.legal/rec
3. Container Owners Association
Kate Marszalek has written in announcing The Container Owners Association has launched its new, re-designed, website – Members and other interested organisations are invited to visit it.
The aim of the new design is to provide easy access to the various activities that are being undertaken by the COA for its Members, including technical work projects and events:
(a) COA Technical Projects (Coatings, Flooring, Reefers, Safety, Flexitanks, Dry Freight Containers, IT/Telematics, Industry Documents)
(b) COA Events (Information about future meetings, and document resources from previous meetings)
(c) COA News (Latest news about the Association’s activities)
http://www.containerownersasso
4. Inter Regional Asia Pacific Mass Rescue Workshop
The International Maritime Rescue Federation (IMRF), the international charity preventing loss of life in the world’s waters, has held a two day Inter Regional Mass Rescue Workshop for the Asia Pacific Region. The event took place on 10-11 July in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia alongside the 7th International Search and Rescue Conference and Exhibition.
Theresa Crossley, CEO IMRF said: “A mass rescue operation (MRO) is ‘characterised by the need for immediate response to large numbers of persons in distress, such that the capabilities normally available to the SAR authorities are inadequate’.
The MRO workshop was delivered by United States Coast Guard specialists George Butler, Environmental Emergency Specialist and Master Exercise Planner, and Robert Lee, U. S. Coast Guard Passenger Vessel Safety Specialist, Mass Rescue Operations Planning & Exercises and Captain Udo Helge Fox, Chairman of the IMRF and Executive Director of German Maritime Search and Rescue Service (DGzRS).
The detailed and practical Inter Regional Asia Pacific workshop attracted attendees from the Royal Malaysian Airforce, the Royal Malaysian Navy, the Royal Malaysia Police, the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency, the Malaysian Road Transport Department and Weststar Aviation, among others. The Defence Attaché from the Korean Embassy also attended the workshop, along with representatives from the Malaysian Marine Department and St John’s Ambulance, from NGO’s based in Algeria and Pakistan, from the Eaglestar Shipping Company and Grand Benchmark Marine Services which is an IMRF Member.
5. The Influence Of Railways On Military Operations
Courtesy of the Browser we learn of this long but interesting piece by H.G.W Davie which appears in History Of Military Logistics. It will appeal to those Readers who have some interest in war or logistics:
Hitler’s armies lost to Stalin’s armies in part because both sides relied so heavily on railway networks to move soldiers and supplies, and the Soviet railways were run far better than the German railways, at least in wartime. Control of the Soviet railways was left in the hands of railwaymen who knew what they were doing, whereas the German railways were commandeered by generals who did not.
https://tinyurl.com/steelwheel
6. People and Place
The IMarEST’s European International Submarine Races 2018, held 3 -13 July at QinetiQ’s Ocean Basin in Gosport, UK, have concluded with the Canadian École de Technologie Supérieure team taking the winning trophy with their submarine, Omer 11 and breaking the world speed record. The runners-up came from universities in the Netherlands and the USA.
The overall winner of the eISR must combine excellence in engineering design, manufacture, performance, reliability and reporting and, in submarine racing, the name Omer is synonymous with all of these. The students from Montreal brought innovation to a new level this year, combining several iterations of racing success into a single world record-breaking submersible speedster.
———-
Red Jet 7, Red Funnel’s new Hi-Speed passenger ferry which has been built in East Cowes will be named by HRH The Duchess of Cornwall in Cowes on Tuesday 24th July.
The ship will be named at a special ceremony, with the festivities starting at 12 noon and the naming itself at 1.30pm alongside Trinity Landing, followed by lunch at the Royal Yacht Squadron for invited guests.
https://www.redfunnel.co.uk/re
———-
The British International Freight Association (BIFA) has announced that Susanne Oud has joined its Board of Directors, replacing Roy Baker who has stepped down having been on the trade association’s Board since 2005.
Susanne is operations director EMEA – verticals at BIFA member company, OIA Global, and is based at the company’s head office in London.
Born in Perth, Australia, she learned the trade through positions with an exporter, shipping line, freight forwarder, before establishing project forwarder and vessel agent, Westlink Shipping.
She emigrated from Australia to the UK in 1998 and joined Bellville Rodair, which she helped to build into an international company with 168 staff, and 21 offices on four continents, before it was acquired by OIA Global in 2013.
———-
Lord Mance has re-joined chambers at 7 King’s Bench Walk, following his retirement as Deputy President of The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom on 6th June 2018. He is available for appointment as arbitrator in a wide variety of cases, particularly international, commercial and investment arbitration.
Lord Mance sat from 1993 to 1999 as a Commercial Judge, and was in 1999 appointed to the Court of Appeal and then in 2005 to the House of Lords, where he spent four years as a Law Lord, before becoming a Justice of the Supreme Court on its formation in 2009.
Lord Mance speaks good German and reasonable French, having worked in both.
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.
Searching the long list of references to “railways”in the archive, we were rather distracted by the editorial levity in Issue 184 of 30th November, 2004. But we do not eschew publishing these concluding thoughts as we enter the season of sour pickles [Saure Gurken] also known in these islands as the silly season:-
Know your place
IT comes as no surprise to learn that geography is the worst-taught subject in our schools. (That sentence works equally well without the hyphen). The subject has apparently become neglected, with 5,000 fewer pupils sitting their geography exams in the UK in 2004 compared with last year, not least because a number of them got lost on their way to the classroom.
You editor has never had any trouble with geography. Set him down on a bald man’s head, and he could find his way to anywhere. Some of his peers, however, have been challenged in the geographical stakes. A former school classmate, when asked to pinpoint New Delhi on the map, zoned in instead on Haverford West railway station. He got nought in the exam, having spelt his name wrongly at the top of the paper.
Over the years, a number of countries have managed to worm their way into the world. But the great advantage of a classical education is that you never learn what you haven’t been taught to know better. Thus, Holland is below sea-level, Switzerland is utterly avuncular, the main imports of Italy are hannibal, vegetable and mineral, Chile is the long thin one, Canada is completely made up of snow, Russia is inscrutable, and South Africa is full of gold.
More about rejuvenated peneplains next week.
Number crunching
A MAN has set a world record for mentally calculating the thirteenth root of a hundred-digit number in 11.8 seconds. Few thought the existing time could be bettered, but the mathematical genius, after cheating death in a car crash, sliced off sixty seconds and the driver’s side of a Volvo. The latter is arguably the greater achievement.
The Guinness Book of Records may not accept the new time. Its spokesman argues, “Some numbers are easier to root than others”. You can say that again. Some numbers are easier to root than others. But Gert Mittring, the mathematical genius, says, “When I’m given a number, I just think of an elegant problem-solving algorithm and the result comes straight away.” Your editor is similarly gifted, but not interested in records. Dr Mittring is German, and wears a cardigan.
Coming out
IT was confirmed this week that Sardinia’s most famous bandit has been granted a pardon by the country’s president, after forty years in prison. Forty years is a long time. But think of the advantages. Here is a man who has never had to listen to rap or house or garage or techno, has never heard of the Hamburg Rules, has never had to shop in Wilkinson’s, has never had to defrag or reboot his computer, or worry about his mobile phone being unfashionable, and who remembers the great Spurs double-winning team of the sixties. Welcome to the modern world, my friend. You have missed very little.
The write stuff
THE deadline for this year’s Annual Seahorse Journalist Awards will pass your editor by. His prose efforts will rightly go unrewarded for yet another year, despite the fact that he can satisfy the relevant criteria – a “maximum of three artciles can be submitted”, “articles can be of any length” (an open invitation to anybody with ambitions to write for either gain or glory), and “articles must have been published in an overseas or UK publication during the last year.”
Although several of his friends have been journalists of the year in several years and are rightly proud of it, your editor has never won a journalism award. One of the reasons for this is the fact that he has never entered a competition for one. Another reason is the fact that, having no ambition whatever to discover the truth about ANYTHING, he makes a poor sort of journalist. His last scoop was the exclusive revelation that the Hague Rules are different things to different people, and nothing at all to others, especially everybody.
Phobia watch
THERE seem to be many more things for people to be afraid of these days than ever there were before. Some of them, it has to be said, are hard to understand. One can just about understand why somebody might be afraid of bridges (gephyrophobia). One might even make out a case for coulrophobia, on the basis that clowns are not a laughing matter for everybody. But geniophobia? Who on earth is afraid of CHINS?
Sometimes, it seems, we are not even sure by what name we should call our fears. In your editor’s newspaper this week there was a story about a man who, when asked by the quizmaster in his local pub what a taphophobiac might suffer from, replied that it was a morbid fear of Welshmen. It is, in fact, a dread of being buried alive. Now THERE’S a phobia guaranteed to stop anybody worrying about chins.
Virtue of Patience
When my husband and I showed up at a very popular restaurant, it was crowded. I went up to the hostess and asked, “Will it be long?”
The hostess, ignoring me, kept writing in her book.
I asked again, “How much of a wait?”
The woman looked up from her book and said, “About ten minutes.”
A short time later, we heard an announcement over the loudspeaker:
“Willette B. Long, your table is ready.”
[Paul Dixon]
Saints R Us
Poor Johnson had spent his life making wrong decisions. If he bet on a horse, it would lose; if he chose one elevator rather than another, it was the one he chose that stalled between floors; the line he picked before the bank teller’s cage never moved; the lane he chose in traffic crawled; the day he picked the picnic was the day of a cloudburst; and so it went, day after day, year after year.
Then, once, it became necessary for Johnson to travel to some city a thousand miles away and do it quickly. A plane was the only possible conveyance that would get him there in time, and it turned out that only one company supplied only one flight that would do. His heart bounded. There was no choice to make! And if he made no choice, surely he could come to no grief.
He took the plane.
Imagine his horror when, midway in the flight, the plane’s engines caught fire and it became obvious the plane would crash in moments.
Johnson broke into fervent prayer to his favorite saint , Saint Francis. He pleaded, “I have never in my life made the right choice. Why this should be, I don’t know, but I have borne my cross and have not complained. On this occasion, however, I did not make a choice; this was the only plane I could take and I had to take it. Why, then, am I being punished?”
He had no sooner finished when a giant hand swooped down out of the clouds and somehow snatched him from the plane. There he was, miraculously suspended two miles above the earth’s surface, while the plane spiraled downward far below.
A heavenly voice came down from the clouds. “My son, I can save you, if you have in truth called upon me.”
“Yes, I called on you,” cried Johnson. “I called on you, Saint Francis!”
“Ah,” said the heavenly voice, “Saint Francis Xavier or Saint Francis of Assisi. Which?”
Thanks for Reading the Maritime Advocate online
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 20 000 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 60 000 Readers in over 120 countries.