Talking of ships and the sea. Food for thought.

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Just read an article about ships and their ever increasing size.

Here's the link. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30696685

She's deemed too big for any US port, now that's food for thought. 1340 feet long 160 feet wide. Well over four football pitches long and much wider than a football pitch. Bigger by far than USS Nimitz.

Just docked in UK, next to Holland and Germany then back to China. At least the crew can get ashore from those ships, not like tankers and ore-carriers.

Comments

Don't forget the other one

...currently parked in the Solent with a 51-degree list.

That design probably seemed like a good idea at the time.

Penny

Lloyd's

Makes one wonder what the line slip looks like at Lloyd's of London. It's not so much the hull cover, or the P&I as the cargo values. 300 million tablets at $200 each would be $60 billion. Of course, where would 300 million tablets go? That's just journalistic nonsense.

Anyway . . . the cat loss potential is staggering. I have a good friend who was a "name" at Lloyd's who lost everything several years ago. He went from quite wealthy to broke, overnight, when things went wrong at Lloyd's.

Years ago I was just starting out my family and proudly purchased a large life insurance policy. The insurance company sent me their annual statement a few months later. On the cover was a picture of one of their largest investments, a freighter called the Edmund Fitzgerald. Later that same month it sank to the bottom of Lake Superior.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=A0LEVvvLA7BUD...

I was big fan of Gordon Lightfoot, but his ballad merely was Billboard salt flowing into my financial wound.

Angela Rasch (Jill M I)

Marine Insurance

From my knowledge (pretty old), the cover offered by one or more Lloyds syndicates would only be for the ship itself.
Any company arranging the insurance of such a vessel would 'lay off' a good chunk of the risk to others. Like a bookie 'lays off' large bets to limit their losses. This is why companies such as Swiss RE exist.

Typically the cargo is not insured under the same policy. This is because the contents of the containers may well be not as their bill of lading says they are. Therefore the contents insurance is left to the people shipping the cargo. They may choose NOT to insure the contents. Conside the containers to be like mobile safe deposit boxes. The contents are the preserve of the owners.
If the ship was a bulk ore, LNG or Oil carrier it would be a different matter.

The shipping company may offer reduced rates for container positions that have a greater chance of loss due to bad weather but that is about it.

As I said, this is how it used to work. I got this understanding when I implemented an insurance broking system in the early 1980's. It may have changed but I doubt it.

Swiss Re

So Swiss Re actually fills in the holes. And Munich Re provides the beer.

I was what is called a Lloyd's of London Correspondent a few decades ago. I wasn't active in marine insurance, but did have binding authority for most property lines. When I get into marine I lose my bearings at "flotsam" and "jetsam". My expertise was more in the area of over the road trucking. Freight haulers do provide the cargo insurance, in most cases.

I don't think there's enough reinsurance in the industry to cover a $60 billion dollar risk. The numbers boggle.

Angela Rasch (Jill M I)

City's of the rich perminetely at sea

Some three or so years ago When this ship was on the drawing board there was some talk about building luxury housing that was equal to Mansion class living. several thousand rich and famous people would inhabit this floating mobile platform supported by a large staff of hired underlings. The quarters would cost many millions of dollars and the city would never go to port. It would be serviced off shore via ship and aircraft housed on the ship. The top deck of this behemoth would be an international airport allowing the jet setters to travel on a whim where ever they wished. There were several technical issues and a large number of legal ones.

If some one remembers this story please let me know. it was a whopper of an Idea that if worked out would change how things work.

With those with open eyes the world reads like a book

celtgirl_0.gif

Hi Beverly,

Hi Beverly,

Reminds my of my 'offical' job.

Also reread Skipper yesterday and had a laugh with the mention of SOLAS (still have some friends at IMO).

Thanks for the writing all this years .

Lynne

PS MSC won't be the 'biggest' for long if I remember something correctly.