Bay Shipping | Port Agency & Ship Broking’s Post

Transcript

So as you've been in the game for a long time, Steve, I believe it was 1979 you started. What has been the biggest changes that you've experienced? So the biggest change is pure communication. So you go from 1 technology like teams and I recall back in my day we didn't have the Internet. Nothing like that. Carrier pigeon. Carrier. Carrier carrier pigeons, Yeah. So once carrier pigeons have died out, we then had a telex. Which was the. I've never used to tell it. Yeah, well, you see, but you see all these young kids, you know, they have all their abbreviations, you know, lol and whatever else we used to have. What's lol? I don't know. You have to talk. That's lots of love. Yeah. So all of that. But we as when we are sending telexes and cables to ships, we have to do it in six letters. So we'd have to break down. Receive your cable. So do it. I'll see why. Receive your received your cable. So slash whatever number it was. And then we'd break it down O you'd try and get as as as fewer words because you were charged no letter, but per 6 letters per six letter. Yeah, OK. And then you'd have to charge the owners for actually sending it. And then for each letter. So, so all of these pre arrivals that we have now, they weren't in existence, you know, on on the emails, but going back to, you know, you have to go back to the office, send a telex. So you'd have to dial up a telex and then one day. We had a brand new telex come in and, and it was an actual like a mini computer. So you had a screen and you could actually save messages so you weren't having to type them out all of the time. It's like a big game changer and faxes and, and things like that. And then all of a sudden this Internet thing hit, you know, emails. We we, we just, you know, we just couldn't believe it. Some of us have still got on the telex to make sure that the message had gone through. Some of the team would still use the talents and how it was. Absolutely. Yeah. But it little things, you know, you'd get a phone call from Sweden and they say, right, we're sending you a telex now with the the loaded cargo on board as steel ship. And we'd have to go in and press a button and put a tape in. So it was like a ticker tape. Yeah. So that you you could then reuse that ticker tape instead of having to type out all of the different grades and steel. Lights and everything else. So we would do things like that. See, I always wonder if. Back in the day. If I had a like the job, like I love it now you would have done because there's a lot more phone calls. You know, nowadays, you know, the phones can be fairly quiet, but you know, that emails are coming through and everything else. But in, back in when I very first started, it was phone based. So those, you know, those customers, you had that that voice contact with them all of the time. Yeah. You're not faceless. No, no, absolutely not. You know, and you'd go and visit them and they'd know you through your phone call. And I think that's what we do well as well, like is our communication with the customer. It's not an e-mail based relationship, no. You know some of them we would class as friends. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It goes a little bit deeper, doesn't it? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So where where do you see going forward then? I want your job. You want my job back? Yeah. Alright. So you don't think I'll be replaced by AI? God? No, no, no. No, I don't think so, mate. I'm. I mean, AI's gonna have its place. But yeah, I don't think in the scheme of things it's gonna. You think ship shipping is a person's business? I personally do, yeah. I think you can use the technology to assist you, but at the end of the day, it's down to. Yeah, that personal touch goes 1,000,000 miles in my opinion. I don't know what you think. I mean, I'm surprised you know what AI is, to be honest. Well, you say. Who told you about that? Was I think it was just, I heard it in the conversation in the office. Yeah. So I mentioned I and I said, what's that then? So, so we're, we're looking obviously at different processes within the shipping side, as we are now, which will involve AI. It will. So, you know, we, we have to embrace these new things as we did in the day. You're shocking me now you're telling me that you're gonna embrace AI. Well, or is that after you retire? When I retire? I'll tell you all tomorrow, OK. Yeah, because I mean no mobile phones in the back in the day. Our first mobile phone was one of these that you get at home and you pull out a big aerial and you have a base and it used to just reach the British Steel jetty. So you'd be able to pull the the cord out, you know, the the aerial out, stick it out your car door and have a conversation with the office. That was great until 1 windy day, I stuck it out the car door. And the car door slammed and the, and the badge and the, the actual aerial just went out anyway. But then you had the big battery pack, you know, with a mobile phone. And then the phones became like, you know, the Motorola big ones that they had on Miami Vice. You won't remember that. But anyway, so it's slowly and then all of a sudden we've got phones now that have emails. Yeah, you know, through your photos or your whatever you do. So that one little thing takes over the whole office. We had telexes facts and yeah, you you think you can do a lot on a modern day mobile that you'd require a whole desk set for? Absolutely. So that's that's the biggest evolution I've seen in my time from 1979 to where we are now is communication, but done on a different way, you know, with the same communication. Absolutely, just different way of doing it. Yeah. And far more mobile, obviously. So we're pre arrival some ports. Have a lot of that was all done on arrival was it? Yeah, it's all done on arrival at the time. So so when we're on board half an hour yeah, you and you'd be on board for a lot longer going through all of the processes that was required and then slowly as e-mail. I mean there was telexes. He did send out telexes with pre arrivals, but they were shortened versions. But as you get minimum required, but now you send everything out. You know you can send out a terminal fact sheet and everything else it's all done on e-mail. So the ship is better. Prepared probably coming in you know they were they all they always used to come in anyway. But as I say with the the the time that you spent on board was was far greater. Yeah, I remember going on we just have a ship call in regularly. So a PJ Angad coming and discharging iron ore. That was my first ship that I was designated to do so you'd go on board see the captain and everything else and as it was a a time chartered ship backwards and forwards, you know you build up relationships. Yeah, so, so the time frame you know could could shorten it, but it's few and far between now and where you get regular callers, isn't it? But also what we've seen on ships is, is the number of crew. So something like a handy size vessel coming into 30 odd thousand tonnes, you'd have maybe 40 crew on board now what? What down to 12/15/20? Depending on the size of **** I'd I'd say from the handies, Panamaxes you're talking about 18 to 2020. Yeah, 21 on a Cape. Like it's not a lot is it? Like. And, and all the workload is still there for the crew. Yeah. So what I mean, they're in back in the the daily save a radio operator who was a chief communicator. So he would have all the customs work done ready for you and the person. And and now we have the captain and the captain does it or all on his own. So it's. Yeah, I know the workloads spread because you can get messages out to them much quicker. But it is, yeah. You've seen the demise of the radio operators and people like that. When the cables were going out to the ship so. Big changes.