The Shipping Gods, who I have mentioned here before, are like their Olympian cousins but not as great and far reaching. They live on an isolated cloud prone island in the south Aegean Sea, north west of Crete and south of the Cyclades, which you may sometimes glimpse from the air as you fly over,…

If you reading this blog from another planet, you may be unaware that the English football team is preparing to take on Italy in the Euro finals. The rest of you will not need telling. As England have progressed through the tournament however, I have had cause to re-examine my relationship with the country of…

Karpathos is a beautiful island, but has many faces, all pointing in different directions, and each one attractive – or otherwise – to different people. Pigadia is not to my taste, Lefkos, especially around the beach, was not built for people like me, but many people take great pleasure in it. It is the north…

A couple of years ago I was walking down one of the side streets in Piraeus and noticed the sign above a shop selling pies and other takeaway food called “Pink Pork”. So taken I was with this sign – native English speakers will probably understand why it amused me – I decided to take…

Before I go any further I need to get one thing off my chest. I am sick and tired of hearing the following words, and I will not allow them to pass my lips: “crazy, incredible, insane, unbelievable, out of control, ridiculous” or any substitutes, synonyms or antonyms thereof. Even though they may come to…

When I first started writing this blog, five years ago, I was determined not to fall into the trap that most shipbroking reports, and indeed market reports of any type, tend to end up in. These are usually in three broad categories:   1)      We are on the way to paradise! 2)      We are on…

Many years ago, as a young shipbroker based in London, I sold a ship from Montenegro to Ethiopia. I was acting on behalf of the sellers, and the buyers had given them an offer that they found hard to resist. We negotiated the price and the terms, and we eventually agreed and signed the contract.…

A long time ago, when I first started my career as a shipbroker in Liverpool, I was sent to look at a ferry belonging to the Isle of Man Steampacket Co which was alongside on the Pier Head. The purpose of the visit was to get a look at what ships look like, especially in…

think a lot about markets and how they behave and develop. My basic point of reference is of course the dry bulk market in particular and the shipping markets in general over many years. I have a few theories about this based on my observations of the behaviour at different times of the people in…

It happened again today. I was chatting with a client of mine, and discussing the state of the ship sale and purchase market. I had called him because there is a lot of action around the size and age of one of his ships, one of the ships we were keeping an eye on as…