Word: ship
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Though maritime trade has been picking up recently due to a resumption in Chinese commodity imports, pushing up the Baltic Dry Index from its lows, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore estimates there are about 150 ships in the vicinity of the island-state, although the number of vessels could be significantly higher than the official figures. That's in addition to 400 to 500 ships that are using Singapore's port at any given time. Most of the vessels outside Singapore are idle and have been stripped to skeleton crews of three or four in contrast...
...Indeed, the maritime parking lot seems to have been good for business at Con-Lash. "We're getting orders more easily," Tony Ng, its owner, says. He estimates that he's supplying nearly 50% more ships on an average week than he did this time last year. "We've been quite surprised." Ng's firm is one of more than 300 ship chandlers in Singapore, some of them still small mom-and-pop outfits. According to Douglas Inch, who runs the secretariat of the Singapore Ship Suppliers Association, most of them are doing well in spite of the downturn...
...three-masted clippers sailed between India and China with cargoes of tea, silver and opium, Singapore was a midway point and a place to drop anchor during the stormy monsoons. Under British colonial rule Singapore developed into a free port where import and export duties were scrapped and passing ships could cheaply purchase all their rigging, provisions, and bunker oil. As the industry grew, the figure of the ship chandler passed into Singapore's literary lore, appearing most memorably in Paul Theroux's 1973 novel Saint Jack, the title character of which is a sly but soft-hearted hustler...
...crowded bus to meet his customers. By contrast Ng sits in Con-Lash's spacious, modern offices on the western edge of Singapore where he presides over a 40-person firm with an annual turnover of roughly $17 million. Apart from the toy models of various clipper ships nearby, his office could belong to a stockbroker or management consultant. Gone are the days when he scrambled aboard ships to haggle over the price of eggs or beer. "I can't remember the last time I was on a ship," Ng says. "It's been years...
...trucks, which will take the goods to a security controlled pier. Heightened security around Singapore's port since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks may have made a chandler's daily routine more regimented and less fun. "In the old days everybody used to knock on the side of the ship and have a beer," Inch recalls. "That's long over." And, as with nearly every industry, the emergence of a handful of big firms like Con-Lash has to an extent curbed the ship chandler's freewheeling spirit...