My gigantism in container
shipping ‘little book’[1]
gave me the opportunity to do something I have always wanted to do since the
days of my good friend and colleague, the late Basil Metaxas and his infamous monograph
The Economics of Tramp Shipping
(Athlone Press, 1971). This was my perceived need for a clarification in the
concepts of tramp; tramping; or tramp shipping on the one hand, and bulk shipping or even bulk-carrier on the other.
Often in the literature, the two concepts, tramp and bulk, have been confused or used interchangeably. Even worse, a
“tramp ship” has often been used synonymously to a “bulk ship”, or bulk-carrier,
and vice versa. However, “tramping” simply
means operating a ship in the spot (voyage) market -i.e. as a taxi of the seas, whereby the
contractual relationship between ‘passenger’ and ‘taxi-driver’ (‘cargo owner’
and ‘shipowner’ in our case) ends upon the completion of the voyage and the
driver (shipowner) is again on the lookout for new custom (cargo) that will
take him to the four corners of the earth, without any scheduling or fixed itinerary
(thus the name tramp). Other than the
ship itself, the provision of a tramp service requires minimal carrier
infrastructure;[2] the
market is highly competitive, with prices (freight rates) fluctuating wildly even
in the course of one day.
Certainly, however, tramping
does not assume any particular type of ship, such as a tanker or a bulk-carrier.
To put it differently, a bulk-carrier or a tanker on a long-term time-charter
is not tramping, nor is one engaged
in a contract of affreightment. In
short, the mere fact that a bulk ship is not offering regular or scheduled
services, like a liner ship, does not make her a tramp. In the opposite, and this is the first time you hear this,
a small container feeder-ship which out of, say, the hub of Piraeus distributes
containers all over the Mediterranean, working as a common carrier,
indiscriminately serving many principals (main-haul majors such as Maersk, MSc,
CMA CGM, Cosco, etc.) would most definitely fall under my definition of tramping.
HE Haralambides
[2] Things
nowadays may be somewhat different, but I remember a Greek shipowner friend,
years back, telling me that, to do tramping, the only things you needed were a
telephone, a shared office and a part-time secretary! He was also very good in
forecasting… I remember him once, while sipping a glorious chilled Viognier on
his terrace, overlooking the Thames, attentively and silently looking down on
the street. “what are you doing”, I asked. “When the queue of the taxis below
is long”, he replied, “business is not good, and people take the bus… shipping
will not be doing well either”, he said philosophically with half a smile, refilling
at the same time our glasses.
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