A stem to move, and three weeks to move it

The usual morning: a quantity, a load port, a discharge range, a laycan, and a budget that decides whether the trade works. It goes to two or three brokers by e-mail, each of whom circulates it to the owners they happen to know, and the answers come back over days in whatever order the brokers get to them.

A posting here goes to every desk on the platform at once. Brokers still see it and still work it, because a broker with a ship for it is exactly who you want to hear from. What changes is that the owner of a hull opening in the right place the right week sees it too, from her own fleet screen, and can answer directly.

What a cargo posting carries

The fields a broker would put in a circular, and nothing a broker would not. Commodity, quantity and tolerance, stowage factor where it matters, load and discharge port or region, laycan, voyage or time charter, and the terms line written the way the trade writes it. A rate idea is off unless you tick it on, because a number published to every owner on the board is a number negotiated against you.

Post as your company or as "a cargo owner". An anonymous posting shows the cargo and not the name, and the name appears to one enquirer at a time, when you answer them. Nothing from your notes is ever copied: a posting is a snapshot of the fields you chose, taken when you press the button, and it can be withdrawn the moment the stem is covered.

What comes back

One enquiry per desk per posting, with the desk's name, the person's name and an address to reply to. You answer or decline from the board, and from the first reply onwards both sides are named and the negotiation goes where it always has, to mail and the phone. The board is where it starts, not where it is held, and the product is not a party to the deal.

The free plan allows three postings live at once. Withdrawing one frees the slot, so a trader with a stem a fortnight is never asked to pay to keep posting; the ceiling limits how much of the board one account can occupy, not how often it trades.

For a charterer's desk, the rest of the product

A charterer who fixes ships every week is a desk, and the desk is the paid product. It adds the search that finds the ship before anybody posts her, the arithmetic that says what she should cost, and the record of what was fixed.

Tonnage search across the register

Desk and above

Search 101,900 hulls carrying an IMO number by deadweight, size class and region to region, and see who manages each one. 45,386 carry a commercial contact who can be written to about a fixture.

Voyage estimate and the freight it implies

Chartering and above

Bunkers by grade, port costs, canal dues and commission, worked back to what the owner earns per day, which is the number that tells you whether the rate idea you were quoted is a good one.

Laytime and demurrage from the statement of facts

Chartering and above

The agent's statement of facts read into a time sheet, every stoppage carrying its reason, and the demurrage or despatch that falls out of it. Argued from the sheet rather than from memory when the claim arrives.

The fixture book

Desk and above

Rate, basis, laycan, parties and status, from negotiating through to fixed, with the recap kept exactly as it was issued.

Where to start

Create an account as a cargo owner and post the stem. It takes no card. 7 days of Desk are free when you want them, and the plans are on the pricing page.

The board itself is described at the marketplace, and the owners you will hear from have a page of their own.