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Issue 7 2015 - Freight Business Journal


///FREIGHT BREAK A modern day Marie Celeste


We’ve seen the first driverless cars make their first tentative spins on the highway, but is the world yet ready for remote controlled ships? Oskar Levander, vice-president for innovation, engineering and technology at Rolls-Royce Marine in Finland predicts that the first crewless ferry could hit the water within four to five years. He says: “Today there is a lot of focus on unmanned airplanes and driverless land-based vehicles and society is becoming more prepared to accept these game-changing solutions.


It is only a question of time as to when shipping will follow the same path.” According to Mr Levander, the first unmanned


commercial ships are likely be locally operated vessels since single flag states can permit their operation before international regulations are in place. In his view, ferries would be a prime candidate for early adoption because they operate within a confined area and in addition ‘there is a clear desire to address the crew cost’.


The base of the pyramid


Word reaches us that supply chain consulting and IT services firm enVista is becoming a big gun in the world of football. According to a press release from the company, whose UK HQ is in Ellesemere Port in the Wirral, EnVista is sponsoring goalkeeper Tim Howard, “who plays for Everton, a football club located in Liverpool, United Kingdom.” (Their words, not mine.)


Yes, I think I have heard of them. Presumably, a


third force in Merseyside football, aſter Liverpool and Tranmere Rovers? This is the second year enVista has sponsored


Tim Howard, an accomplished goalkeeper who has played for the US national team. He joined Everton in the summer of 2006.


He must be doing something right When Liverpool led the world


The port of Liverpool celebrated the 300th birthday of a shipping innovation more important than even the ubiquitous box on 31 August – the opening of the world’s oldest enclosed commercial wet dock. When it opened in 1715, the ‘old dock’, as it is now known (though presumably it was known as the state-of-the-art, cutting-edge dock back then) allowed ships to load and unload whatever the state of the tide, for the first time in history and, by the end of the 19th Century 9% of world (not UK) trade went through Liverpool. Able to accommodate up to 100


ships at a time within its 3.5 acres, the dock took five years to build at a cost of £12,000 – this at a time when the average labourer would have earned £20 per year. If the plan had failed, the city would have gone bankrupt. The dock was filled in in 1826, having been


superseded by larger and deeper ones built into the river Mersey, but was rediscovered during excavations in 2001 and the remains have been preserved as part of Mersey Maritime Museum. Meanwhile, the currently disused Grade II listed


Hydraulic Tower building, which once used to drive the lock gates and bridges in the Birkenhead Docks, is to be the centrepiece of a new project that aims to provide the next generation of innovators


and entrepreneurs to support the Northern Powerhouse agenda. The private and public sector consortium


behind the initiative, including Peel Ports, Mersey Maritime and Liverpool John Moores University is expected to cost around £20m and take three years to complete, aims to benefit the local economy with skills development and opportunities for knowledge-sharing. The tower, which is modelled on Florence’s


Palazzo Vecchio, is located in the heart of the Mersey Waters Enterprise Zone, part of which is focused on advanced manufacturing and engineering, automotive, energy, maritime and business services.


Half a century is an impressive milestone in any respect but Neill & Brown Global Logistics boss Peter Brown, can boast half a century’s service with the same company. Now chief executive of the Hull-based forwarder,


he started out in 1965 as the office boy, palletising imported Scandinavian timber at the former RAF Catfoss airfield in East Yorkshire for onward distribution. Under Mr Brown’s stewardship, employee


numbers rose from 75 to more than 130 in the past few years and a 60,000sq ſt international warehouse opened at Marfleet Environmental Technology Park


Peter Brown (far leſt) celebrates 50 years with the company, with fellow directors Carl Andrew, Ian Halder and Colin Moody (L-R).


From the basement to 10,000 flights a year


Air Charter Service is celebrating 25 years since chairman Chris Leach and his wife Tina founded the company in the basement of their family home in south west London. Chris Leach was literally born


into aviation. His father worked as a pilot for a charter airline at the obscure airfield of Stansted Mountfitchet and, according to family legend, his mother went into labour on the tarmac while


Dad carried out a dodgy landing aſter he suffered an engine failure. Almost inevitably, Chris Leach


also went into the business, working first as a cargo aircraſt loadmaster as well as for freight forwarder Savino Del Bene. He then started the charter business to pay the mortgage. Times were tough at first, so


the Leaches rented a room in their house to a student who, coincidentally, was an aviation


enthusiast and who spent hours at a time memorising the registration of every aircraſt in the world. That student was Justin Bowman, now group chief executive. The company is now


investing £10 million in new charter technology and last year arranged over 9,000 charter contracts from its 18 offices, with a target this year of more than 10,000.


in east Hull. The company itself will celebrate its centenary in


2017. Not even Peter Brown can remember the days of horse and cart used to deliver timber in the early days.


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