As we’ve returned from the summer season, we’ve been deluged by webcasts, webinars, infomercials on steroids, experts on self-importance drugs, on and on it goes. It was refreshing to log on to the Association of Ship Brokers and Agents (ASBA) annual conference. Pre-Covid, the sessions- held in Miami Beach, Florida, always offered a great blend of serious presentations mixed in with fun (including golfing, and a great boatride). The programs have featured presentations bringing the real shipping world through the eyes of market participants- quite difference from the usual conference fare.
While the 2020 event was conducted online via a Zoom platform, instead of at the Eden Roc hotel in Miami Beach (which was showing signs of a creeping Nobu presence), the authenticity and relevance for on the market shipping participants was as good as ever. This year a virtual event dubbed “What would you do?” featured two separate sessions, one for drybulk and the other for tankers, where the respective panels (composed of real life representatives from cargo, shipowning, agency and brokerage) reacted to issues arising at loading or discharge. The online event was more than vaguely reminiscent of New York Maritime (NYMAR)’s 2015 “Seven Days in May” docudrama- acted live by industry participants, where an explosive incident in New York harbor led to chaos and arbitration.
The drybulk panelists, assuming their real life roles considered a scenario called “Statement of Incorrect Facts”, which dealt with confusion surrounding “Weather Working Days” (WWD), common in drybulk charter agreements. A ship due to load a non-weather sensitive cargo, in Argentina is delayed at its anchorage by a vessel at the berth, discharging fertilizer- which is sensitive to weather. When the dust settles, the owner claims a rather large demurrage bill, citing rain delays, including while at anchor for 10 days, and while actually loading an unspecified cargo not sensitive to weather. Meantime, the charterers are looking for dispatch of $12K- having loaded the vessel quickly once the berth became available. The Statement of Facts, prepared by a local steamship agent, had been signed off on by the vessel’s Master without mention of rain times, let’s just say under extreme duress.
The pandemic-related events of 2020 came into focus in a follow-on presentation- dealing with the fine print and the finer points of port state vessel examinations by the U.S. Coast Guard. In what we call Episode 2, titled “Certificate of Compliance- Waiver or Not?”, a tanker finishing up cargo operations in New York is issued a 90 day waiver for a just expired COC by the local office of the Coast Guard. Upon voyaging to its next port, Philadelphia, just down the coast- the vessel owners are informed by the Philly agent that the waiver is only good in New York, not in Philadelphia- where the vessel must wait several days for a COC inspection (as the Coast Guard is having a Covid-19 related manpower shortage) before proceeding with cargo operations. The agent, played by a fellow from one of the bigger East Coast agencies, can be heard holding his cool and telling the charterer (with the role handled by a chartering man from an oil major), “I am doing everything I can…” and then telling the owner (played by a tanker market maven at a leading owner), “I don’t get it…. I wish I could run to Washington, DC and scream and yell…” I will leave the readers here trying to imagine the charterer, also trying hard to hold his temper, telling the charter broker to put the owners on notice.
I won’t provide spoilers on how these scenarios ended- though, not surprisingly, the “A” word, arbitration, looms large. But there are some lessons here for the virtual world, not so much about charter party clauses per se, or whether New York is a better venue for arbitration than, say, Singapore. Rather, it’s about keeping the authenticity in a medium where things like artificial backgrounds (think about your online friends pretending to be in San Francisco in the early days of Zoom) are just the beginning steps tempting presenters to infuse an artificial reality. Where possible, keep it real, authentic, and simple.
