‘Bear’ necessities hit Ship Finance
Shakespeare, in The Winter's Tale, includes the stage direction: "Exit, pursued by a bear." The bear that is pursuing us is a bad market.
Many of us fear the impact on the lending institutions that specialize in ship mortgage finance. The more philosophical say: "The banks always start lending again." The pessimists say that parts of the ship banking market resemble Monty Python's dead parrot. You may think that it is just resting, but some departments really are deceased. Worryingly, the combination of specialized knowledge and prudence that makes a good banker is born of experience.
With extensive (if unannounced) layoffs now occurring in the shipping departments of leading British and German… Continue reading
The safety culture vulture
What do we mean by a safety culture? Immediately we descend into long words and hypothetical situations, spiced, perhaps, with a bit of cod-sociology. Peter Mason is a consultant in risk management , whose company Lloydmasters numbers oil companies and shipbuilders among his maritime industry clients, although he operates chiefly in other sectors. He answered this killer question in what seemed to be the most perfect fashion. “Safety culture? – It’s the way we do things around here when nobody else is watching”. Think about it. It is compliance with safety norms and practices, because you know it makes sense, and because you want to, not because you know that you will get the sack if you are found wanting. You do the right thing, because you know it is right… Continue readingThe Greeks had a word for it
Greeks have always known a thing or two about the shipping industry, and operational issues were apparently a concern in classical times, as they are today. Pericles lived in an age that abounded in great thinkers, and as one contemplates (or tries to) the problems of training and retention of seafarers, it is clear that he, and other big names of those days, would have been well aware of the issues fared by seafarers, and those who employ them, today. Continue readingCopenhagen: the appliance of science?
Is it really the case that half the inhabitants of the United States and about the same proportion of the population of the United Kingdom are “flat earthers”, for their unwillingness to subscribe to the sacred tenets of man-made global warming? In the revivalist atmosphere within that great warehouse on the outskirts of Copenhagen, ringed by 17,000 panting environmental activists, it is probably hard to suggest a contrary view, although a brave delegate from Saudi Arabia seemed to cast doubts about the legitimacy of the gathering on the inaugural day. Could it be that the “consensus” of scientists who have subscribed to the certainty of the human contribution to temperature increases and the inevitability of catastrophe, unless we mend our ways, have rather overdone their dire warnings? It might be the media… Continue readingYou need to know the numbers
Like it or not, seafaring skill is a global commodity, and it is important to know what is what, and who is where. Seafarers are not the flexible friends they were in the past, but becoming as specialised as their ships are, and the provision of their skills are as important as the ships themselves. Continue readingLooking for support
We have long expected that another major oil spill would happen some day. If this happens, will draconian and possibly unworkable regulations be put in effect? How can our industry work together to eliminate the "holes in the fence" that now exist, and create a more broad-based, higher quality and performance system within our industry? Continue readingInvestment for the future
It is difficult to prescribe (or even advise) how others ought to arrange their commercial affairs during a shipping recession, especially one that could be of longer duration than the overlying trade downturn. Every enterprise is different, and the strategies employed to cut ones’ coat according to the available cloth are many and varied.But there should surely be very great caution exercised before permitting the cost cutters to do their work on the training budget. To hack back on cadet training, or ruthlessly refuse to employ young people you have spent several years training is akin to desperate agriculturalists eating the seedcorn, and condemning themselves to starvation in the future.
The shipping industry has barely recovered its reputation from the last deep and long recession, much of which was self-inflicted, but… Continue reading