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Notes on how ship broking actually works, written while building a desk against the world merchant fleet. Every figure here is measured rather than estimated.

Fundamentals

The distinctions the rest of the product is built on.

Chartering abbreviationsThe abbreviations on a circular, an enquiry and a recap, grouped by where you meet them, and what each one commits you to. Position list vs AIS vs port line-upThree things routinely confused in chartering: where a ship is, when she is free next, and what the port authority expects at the berth. Reading a ship's particularsWhat each figure on a vessel description constrains, why GRT is a volume, and why draught excludes a ship long before deadweight does. Ship broker software vs spreadsheetsMost broking desks run on Excel and e-mail, and for a while that is the right answer. What breaks, in what order, and the point at which it stops being the right answer. The IMO numberSeven digits, permanent for the life of the hull. How the check digit works, and why MMSI is not a substitute. What a ship broker doesThe job itself: two lists nobody publishes, a market with no screen, and a commission earned only when a deal concludes. Who is who on a fixtureA dozen parties, several of them called the owner and two of them called the agent. Who instructs whom, and who you may telephone.

Enquiries and tonnage

What arrives by e-mail every morning, and how to read it.

Dry bulk vessel sizesHandysize to Capesize: where the deadweight bands sit, why the boundaries are conventions, and how many hulls are in each. How to read a cargo enquiryThe e-mail saying a charterer needs something moved, walked field by field, and why an enquiry is not an offer. How to read a tonnage circularThe open-tonnage e-mail: the fields, the abbreviations that ride on the line, and why the ship's name is the hard part. Laycan: laydays and cancellingTwo dates doing opposite jobs: the earliest a charterer must accept the ship, and the latest they may walk away from her. Matching a cargo to a shipOne cargo, five open ships and one real candidate. Which constraints are arithmetic, which are somebody's opinion, and why the shortlist is short. Tanker sizesHandy to ULCC: where the tanker bands sit, and why the coating and the last three cargoes decide suitability, not the deadweight. What a ship can actually liftA 58,000 deadweight ship does not lift 58,000 tonnes, and at a shallow berth she may not lift 52,000. The arithmetic nobody does in their head.

Deals

The contract, the clock against it, and the arithmetic.

Bunkers and fuel gradesTwo grades and sometimes three, priced apart. The largest number on a voyage estimate is also the one nobody warrants. Charterparty formsNobody drafts a charterparty from nothing. They name a printed form, amend it, and then argue about which half of the document wins. Demurrage vs detentionOne is a daily rate agreed before the delay, the other a loss proved after it. Container shipping uses both words for something else. Firm offers, counters and subjectsAn indication costs nothing, a firm offer holds the ship, and a fixture on subs is not a fixture yet. The ladder from enquiry to clean fixture. How ship broker commission worksEvery commission on a fixture comes out of the owner's freight, including the charterer's broker's. How the percentages stack, and what they are due on. How to calculate laytime and demurrageWhere the clock starts, what stops it, how the demurrage figure is actually worked out, and why most claims are lost on the paperwork rather than the merits. Notice of readinessThe one page that starts the laytime clock: arrived, ready, tendered, and the separate way each of those three is attacked. The fixture recapThe e-mail that says what was agreed. Written in minutes, read by a tribunal years later, and the contract until the charterparty is drawn. The statement of factsThe agent’s timed record of everything that happened in port. Every demurrage claim is decided on it, long after anyone was watching. Time charter equivalentFreight per tonne means nothing next to hire per day until you divide it by the voyage. This is the arithmetic that does it. Voyage charter vs time charterThe risk split behind the two main charter forms, what each side pays for, and which terms only exist on one side of it.

Ships and the sea

What a ship is, how she is measured, and what keeps her upright.

Classification societiesClass is a private standard for hull and machinery plus a survey cycle, not a regulator and not a verdict on the owner. Draft survey: weighing cargo by displacementA draft survey does not weigh the cargo. It weighs the ship twice and subtracts, and the errors in between become shortage claims. How a ship is measuredTonnage is a volume, deadweight is a weight, and the canals keep a third set of books. Where each number on a ship comes from. Hull form and resistanceWhat a ship burns is set by the shape she drags through the water, and by how clean it has been kept since the last drydocking. Marine propulsion and enginesOne slow two-stroke turning one propeller with no gearbox. Why that won, and why a speed warranty is a promise rather than a fact. Ship stability basicsWhy a ship returns upright, what GM really measures, and why a very stiff ship is a problem rather than a safety margin. Ship types and what they carryThe physical state of the cargo decides the ship, and the type field on a register flattens most of the distinctions a broker needs.

Cargo work

Getting the cargo aboard, keeping it there, and getting it out again.

Breakbulk and project cargoThe cargo that is counted in pieces, not tonnes, and where the largest piece picks the vessel. Cargo securing and lashingWhy the ship with the best stability figures is often the worst place to put a heavy piece. Dangerous goods and the IMDG CodeFour pieces of information turn a hazardous cargo into a shippable one. An enquiry without them is not yet an enquiry. Dry bulk cargo handlingThe ship arrives, and then five separate things have to go right before a tonne of cargo is aboard. Grain cargoes and stabilityThe cargo that can capsize a ship that is nowhere near her marks, and the paper that decides whether she may carry it. Stowage factor and broken stowageTwo numbers that both turn space into tonnes, and only one of them is printed in the cargo book. Tanker cargo operationsThe cargo is pumped, the ship must be approved before she is fixed, and the quantity is measured twice by parties who disagree.

Law and insurance

Who carries which risk, and the conventions that decide it.

Bills of ladingA receipt, evidence of a contract and a key to the cargo, all on one piece of paper, and most disputes come from confusing the three. General averageA loss deliberately inflicted on one interest to save them all is shared by all of them, which is why a cargo owner who did nothing wrong gets a demand for money. Hague-Visby, Hamburg and Rotterdam RulesOne regime governs most of world trade, one is in force but nowhere that matters, one is not in force at all, and the ancestor is still the law in the United States. Liens, cesser and deadfreightProving the claim is the easy half. These are the clauses that decide whether an owner can actually collect. Maritime arbitrationWhere your dispute is heard is decided by one line in the recap, usually written last and read least. P&I clubs and marine insuranceA ship carries several insurances that do not overlap, so is the ship insured is not a question with one answer. Safe port and safe berthWhether the safe port promise is a guarantee or only a duty of care is one line in the charter and two different answers depending on the governing law.

Operations and safety

The rules a ship is run under and the people who enforce them.

Ballast water managementEvery ship carries water she did not intend to move. Two regimes now govern it, and the second one is not satisfied by complying with the first. Port agency and disbursementsSomebody has to meet the ship. Who appoints the agent, who the agent answers to, and how a PDA becomes an FDA. SOLAS explainedThe safety convention every merchant ship is certified under. What is actually in it, and the handful of chapters a broker meets by name. STCW and crewingCompetence, manning and employment are three different regimes. Which one answers which question, and where rest hours actually come from. The ISM Code and the DOC holderEvery ship has a company legally responsible for running her safely. Finding out which company that is tells you more than the registered owner does. The ISPS Code and security levelsThe maritime security regime, the certificate it produces, and the charterparty argument about who pays when the security level goes up. The MARPOL annexesSix annexes, six different things a ship may not put into the sea or the air. Which are optional, which produce record books, and which cost freight.

Markets and money

What freight costs, why it moves, and how ships are bought and paid for.

Bunker pricing and hedgingFuel is usually the largest single voyage cost and the only one quoted as a market that moves daily. Where the price comes from, and the three ways to stop it moving. Freight markets and the Baltic indicesThe BDI is a panel of brokers' judgement on defined routes, not a price anybody paid. What it is for, and what it will not tell you about your ship. Sale and purchaseA ship is a traded asset as well as a carrier of cargo. The sequence of an S&P deal, and the traps that sit between an indication and a protocol of delivery. Ship financeAlmost every hull sits in a company of its own with a mortgage over it. That structure explains the ownership record, the covenants, and the rate an owner cannot take. Ship recycling and demolitionThe final sale is priced on the weight of the ship herself, not her cargo capacity. LDT, cash buyers, and the last voyage that scrambles the register. Shipping cyclesSupply is a fleet ordered three years ago and demand is not. That mismatch is the whole reason freight rates behave the way they do. Worldscale explainedWS 92.5 is a percentage of a published rate for one specific voyage. What the flat rate is, and why the same number means different money on different routes.

Reference

Where the data comes from, and what it will not tell you.

Emission control areasTen areas where the fuel a ship may burn is capped tighter than the global limit. Which lines are exact, which are traced, and which do not bite yet. Flag states and open registriesA flag decides whose law and whose certificates a ship carries. Open registries are ordinary commerce, not evidence of anything. Navigating limits and AWIWLFour letters on a recap standing for a hull underwriter’s list of water, most of it excluded only in winter, and none of it forbidden. Port line-up data sourcesWhich port authorities publish a berthing schedule, what shape each one comes in, and why there is no world line-up feed. Port state control and detentionsA detained ship cannot perform. What an inspection actually records, and how to read a hull's record without over-reading one bad day. Ship names change, and they are not uniqueNames repeat and names change. Why a name is the worst key on a hull, and the ranked match that works in its place. War risk areasAn underwriters’ list of water, not a report of what happened last week. What being inside one does to the premium, the crew, the route and the rate. What ship chartering software costsGovernment contract records put real numbers against products whose vendors will not quote one in public. Who owns a shipA hull has up to five companies behind it and they are not interchangeable. Only one of them answers a chartering e-mail.

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Chartering software for a broking desk, covering the whole cycle: the world merchant fleet, position lists, cargo enquiries, fixtures, laytime and demurrage, and who to write to. Every paid plan starts with 7 free days. A card is needed to start them, and cancelling before they end costs nothing.

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