Death of a Supertanker Read Online Free PDF

boardroom.
    The chairman, an elderly German from Frankfurt with iron-grey hair and a deeply lined face, sat at the head of the table; the managing-director, Kurt Raustadt, on his right; the deputy-chairman on his left. Three other members of the Board were present and two officials: the marine-superintendent, Nico Kostadis, who had flown over from London that morning, and the managing-director’s secretary, a good-looking woman of indeterminate age.
    ‘So Hammarsen and McLintoch now agree, do they?’ The chairman tapped impatiently with a gold pencil on the blotter in front of him.
    ‘Yes. I phoned them again this morning,’ said Raustadt. ‘They recommend acceptance of the lowest tender: Marinreparat. They are well-established ship repairers with plenty of experience. Head office in Hamburg, but they’ve had this South African subsidiary for some years now.’
    ‘What’s their estimate of the time necessary to complete repairs?’
    ‘Five days from receipt of the new HP rotor delivered on board in Durban. They say they can …’
    The deputy-chairman, a bald hunched man with a rasping voice, interrupted. ‘When will the rotor arrive there?’
    ‘That’s the problem. There isn’t one immediately available. The intention is to cannibalize a laid-up VLCC which has thesame turbines. This means a delay of about a week.’
    The chairman leant forward, his jaw thrust purposefully towards the speaker. ‘It’s five days since the breakdown. So we’re talking of a delay of, say, nineteen or twenty days in all. Right?’ He resumed his pencil tapping. ‘You know what that means, gentlemen. Ocean Mammoth cannot now arrive in the Gulf before the OPEC price increase. The charter party specified completion of loading in Bahrain before the fifteenth. There is no possibility of meeting that deadline.’
    ‘So?’ The deputy-chairman pursed his lips, turning his head to regard the chairman with tired red-rimmed eyes.
    ‘So we inform Akonol that we cannot comply. Circumstances beyond our control. That still leaves us with the problem of Ocean Mammoth broken down halfway to the Gulf. And no prospect now of getting a cargo.’
    ‘We’re covered against any claim from Akonol.’ The managing-director said it smugly, smoothing his sleek black hair with the palm of his hand in a way which suggested sensual pleasure. ‘No performance through breakdown clause. And of …’
    ‘Yes, yes.’ The chairman interrupted with sudden irritation. ‘We know that. And we’re covered by the underwriters for towage and repairs but not for loss of earnings – and that item runs into millions of dollars. The central difficulty remains. The breakdown simply underlines it. We have an acute cash flow problem. We ordered the four VLCCs when the market merited such a decision. The ships have been delivered, two are employed, one is already laid up – now we have Ocean Mammoth stranded in Durban without any chance of picking up a cargo in the Gulf. We shall have to get her back to the UK and lay her up. May I remind you that we borrowed two hundred and fifty million dollars to pay for those ships. Since their delivery the tanker market has collapsed. The ships can no longer earn the money necessary to service the loans, let alone repay them.’ He spread his hands in a gesture of despair.
    ‘I warned against this possibility when first we discussed building them,’ said the director from Paris, a thin birdlike little man with yellow skin. ‘I warned then of the consequences if the market should fall. But you reassured me.’ He paused, his tone hesitant. The chairman was an influential man. He had no desire to offend him.
    ‘That market has not fallen, my dear le Febre. It has collapsed.A somewhat different matter, and something no one could have foreseen. Of course I reassured you. I always do, because you have no heart for decisions and that is sad in an entrepreneur.’ He smiled thinly, pleased with the courteous nature of the rebuke.