IN THIS ISSUE
1. In Rem Action
2. Should Animal Shipments from Australia be banned during the Arabian Gulf Summer?
3. Annals of Globalisation
4. P&I Club Claims Appeal Process Upheld
5. Turbulence-No Biggie Says Pilot
6. People and Places
FOB Network News
During the rest of 2017 the Publishers are looking to raise some external finance in order to take our efforts to the next level by supporting more marketing and programming people.
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. In Rem Action
Dennis L Bryant, writing in his marine blog reports:-
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued its decision in a case involving a dispute involving the transport of a tug from Houston to Nigeria. Multiple parties were involved, one of which is now bankrupt. The party actually performing the transport did not get paid, being the party in line just behind the now-bankrupt party. There was a dispute as to the port of discharge in Nigeria, with communications between various parties being uncertain. Over a vigorous dissent, the appellate court reversed the district court’s denial of the unpaid carrier’s in rem action against the tug, but affirmed the lower court decision in all other respects. GIC Services v Freightplus USA, No. 15-30975 (5th Cir., August 8, 2017)
http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/15/15-30975-CV0.pdf
2. Should Animal Shipments from Australia be banned during the Arabian Gulf Summer?
So asks Sam Chambers in his article in Splash 24/7 on the loss of 3000 sheep consigned to Doha.
http://splash247.com/outrage-as-3000-animals-die-onboard-37-year-old-livestock-carrier/
3. Annals of Globalisation
A very acute article by Christina Moon appears in the current issue of Vestog-a highly literate fashion webzine–on the nature of the fast fashion global supply chain and how it teeters on the edge of communities, solvency, talent, law and much more. It hardly says a thing about shipping and transport and yet the way we carry goods now makes it all possible.
Http://vestoj.com/the-la-rag-trade/
4. P&I Club Claims Appeal Process Upheld
The latest case report from BatesCarey in Chicago examines a recent US decision, TransAtlantic Lines LLC v. Am. Steamship Owners Mut. Prot. & Indemn. Assân, Inc., where the court enforced a P&I Clubâs internal claims appeal process as a legally binding ADR method. The court rejected allegations brought by one the Clubâs Members that the procedure, to which it had agreed, was âfundamentally unfair.â The courtâs holding is a reminder that a coverage decision, rendered in connection with an ADR procedure voluntarily entered into by the parties, is not lightly set aside. The note appears in the Kluwer Arbitration Blog:-
5. Turbulence-No Biggie Says Pilot
Ever attentive to what is said and done by our brethren in the aviation industry, we ran across this excellent blog post by Patrick Smith of AskThePilot.com which appears in the Business insider UK. Turbulence really is. According to Smith, just “bumpy air”.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/pilot-explains-turbulence-safe-2017-8?r=US&IR=T
6. People and Places
Jeffrey Blum writes:-
London evening classes for shipping professionals:-
Maritime Education & Training Ltd (METL) is open for enrolment for the new academic year 2017-2018 in preparation for the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers examinations in May 2018. Evening classes are held at our venue at King’s College, Guy’s Campus, behind London Bridge station from 11th September 2017 until 29th March 2018. Details are available on our website:-
———-
A new three-year research project, funded by the EUâs Horizon 2020 programme, has been launched to address safety and efficiency in Arctic ship operations. SEDNA will develop a novel risk-based approach to Arctic navigation, ship design and maritime operations. Details here:-
———-
The International Maritime Rescue Federation (IMRF) has been awarded $450,000 USD by The TK Foundation to support its work building vital maritime search and rescue (SAR) capability in Africa.
The funding will be spread over three years and will support the IMRF’s Global SAR Development (GSD) project, to help improve SAR capability across 29 countries in Africa, with a focus on building the capability of Rescue Coordination Centres (RCCs), Rescue Sub-Centres (RSCs) and SAR Mission Coordinators.
https://international-maritime-rescue.org/
———-
Norton Rose Fulbright has announced its partner and head of shipping for North Asia, Jonathan Silver, has been sworn in as a member of the Marshall Islands Bar.
Jonathan is Norton Rose Fulbrightâs third Marshall Islands qualified attorney, joining New York partner Brian Devine who was admitted to practise Marshall Islands law in 2016 and Singapore of counsel, Sung-Hwan âSDâ Choi who was also admitted to practise Marshall Islands law in 2016 and joined the firm in May 2017. Norton Rose Fulbright now has one of the worldâs largest Marshall Islands practices, and is able to better serve clients operating across all time zones.
The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) ship registry is the second largest ship registry in the world, representing a significant number of the world’s commercial shipping fleet. A growing number of business entities formed in the RMI are routinely used as corporate vehicles for shipping and non-shipping activities.
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.
Since we featured fashion in item 3 we did a search for the term but turned up many more references to “unfashionable” as befits a serious zine preoccupied b rules and laws. Below the best of a weak bunch which appeared in Issue 184 of 30th November 2004:-
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 articles 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.
Whistler in Victorian Docklands
From Spitalfields Life, our favourite blog devoted to London:-
American-born artist, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, was only twenty-five when he arrived in London from Paris in the summer of 1859 and, rejecting the opportunity of staying with his half-sister in Sloane St, he took up lodgings in Wapping instead. Influenced by Charles Baudelaire to pursue subjects from modern life and seek beauty among the working people of the teeming city, Whistler lived among the longshoremen, dockers, watermen and lightermen who inhabited the riverside, frequenting the pubs where they ate and drank.
The revelatory etchings that he created at this time, capturing an entire lost world of ramshackle wooden wharfs, jetties, warehouses, docks and yards. Rowing back and forth, the young artist spent weeks in August and September of 1859 upon the Thames capturing the minutiae of the riverside scene within expansive compositions, often featuring distinctive portraits of the men who worked there in the foreground.
See the images here:-
http://spitalfieldslife.com/2017/08/15/james-mcneill-whistler-in-the-east-end/
The Wisdom of Aviators
The pilot was sitting in his seat and pulled out a .38 revolver. He placed it on top of the instrument panel, and then asked the navigator, “Do you know what I use this for?”
The navigator replied timidly, “No, what’s it for?”
The pilot responded, “I use this on navigators who get me lost!”
The navigator proceeded to pull out a .45 and place it on his chart table.
The pilot asked, “What’s that for?”
“To be honest sir,” the navigator replied, “I’ll know we’re lost before you will.”
[Paul Dixon]