Anticipating the challenge

Anticipating the challenge
David Taylor reflects on the Shipping in the New Millennium conference, held in Brisbane from March 17-19, at which he himself was a speaker

BRISBANE, the fastest growing city in Australia, captivated Billy Connolly on his "World tour of Australia". He is right - it is a city transformed, a delight to visit and the perfect conference venue. Any event which in these difficult days attracts 160 or more delegates and thirty prominent speakers from across the globe has to be significant.

It becomes something very special when the presentations include thoughtful contributions from such leading shipowners as Ronald Bergman, president of BIMCO, Gregory Hadjieleftheriadis, president of Eletson Corporation, and John Lyras, president of the Union of Greek Shipowners, as well as perhaps the international debut of Willem de Ruiter, head of the Maritime Safety Division of DG VII, who has just succeeded Roberto Salvarani.

The occasion was yet further embellished by two federal judges, other prominent lawyers, representatives of hull and P & I insurers, participation by former Australian Federal Minister of Transport and Regional Services, Peter Morris, and a closing speech from the current Federal Minister of Transport of the Regions, The Hon John Anderson.

The theme was anticipating the challenge of the new millennium from a practical operational point of view, as well as an examination of the legal implications. The maritime industry at large was there to share its hopes and anxieties about both the present day and the future. Shipowners, ship managers, port operators, the cruise industry, fast ferry constructors, bulk cargo operators, classification societies, regulators, offshore operators, lawyers and classification societies all had their say.

Justice Richard Cooper, speaker, and Justice Brian Tamberlin, session chairman, helped to focus on the possible need to reconsider existing marine insurance law and maritime law in the context of the millennium. None was heretic. While it was thought that to review the Marine Insurance Act 1906 at the turn of the century was appropriate, none criticised its performance over the past century. Durability is, after all, a fair test of quality.

The level of interest never diminished. Fascinating presentations abounded, such as that of Captain Stephen Pelecanos of the Australian Marine Pilots Association, who looked in depth at the working conditions of marine pilots in the search for an explanation for pilot error.

Svein Soerlie of Barber International, Oslo, foresaw the likelihood of massive technical, operational, change. Those contemplating revision of marine insurance and carriage of goods by sea law will need to be nimble enough to envisage a legal regime which meets the technical complexity of the millennium. Additionally, legal concepts based upon the theory of the master's isolation and the agony of the moment in a casualty on the far side of the globe, and the ownership of vessels which only return to the home port after two years, will never be sustainable in the next millennium. As Svein Soerlie put it, "The death of distance will need to be recognised".

It was evident from the presentations that fundamental change was rampant in the shipping and insurance industry - none was exempt. The challenge was to analyse the implications wisely, skillfully and commercially. None perhaps expressed the potential for change more graphically than James Dowson of the Shipowners Mutual, who quoted the commentator who anticipated that, in future, ships would be operated by a man and his dog - the man to feed the dog, and the dog to stop the man from touching the technical equipment.

The imagination of the participants was exciting yet realistic, and perhaps none would argue with Lord Goff who, when speaking of codification of law, urged that "it never be undertaken unless one is convinced that the good it might do will exceed the harm that it must do." This is as true of reform as it is of the introduction of change.

None of the delegates or speakers can have failed to have benefited, and all will have wished to congratulate BIMCO, and Anthe Philippides as Chairman of the Organising Committee of the Queensland branch of the MLAANZ, for staging the event. The pleasure was all ours.

David Taylor is permanent secretary of the Joint Hull Committee and special adviser to the International Underwriting Association of London. The conference was organised by BIMCO and the Maritime Law Association of Australia & New Zealand

A question of endurance

WHEN I was at school, you had to be one thing or another, in just about every area of life. Spurs or Arsenal. Cowboys or Indians. The Beatles or the Stones. Oxford or Cambridge. Scott or Shackleton.

I was always a Shackleton man myself. I never really knew why, but I'm glad I was after reading Caroline Alexander's The Endurance. The book is about Shackleton's legendary Antarctic expedition, when in August 1914 he set out with a crew of twenty-seven with the aim of crossing Antarctica. This was the only great unclaimed prize in the history of polar navigation, Amundsen already having won the race to the south pole.

The Endurance was just eighty miles short of its destination when the icy waters of the Weddell Sea trapped it in its grim embrace. For the next ten months the men waited in vain for the ice to break. It never did, and the Endurance was crushed like matchwood under the terrible floes, leaving the crew high and anything but dry.

This book tells the story of Shackleton's expedition. It is all the richer for the inclusion of the remarkable black-and-white photographs of Frank Hurley, the Australian photographer who joined the crew of the ship to document their achievements.

The combination of text and photographs captures what must be the terrible beauty of Antarctica, the tragic destruction of the ship and the struggle of the crew simply to stay alive. The ordeal included two terrifying, near-suicidal attempts to escape by open boat, before the expedition was finally rescued after almost two years.

The survival of Hurley's photographs is almost as big a miracle as the survival of the crew of the Endurance. His glass-plate negatives were stored in hermetically sealed canisters that lasted five months on the ice floes, a week in an open boat on the icy seas, and five months buried in the snows of Elephant Island. In fact, the last batch of photographs was taken by Hurley using a pocket camera and a single role of Kodak. You would never know.

Here is a book to warm your heart. It is a story of man against nature. And it makes you glad that you were a Shackleton man at school.