Maritime Transportation And Shipping Talk

If you intend to ship less than a full container load overseas a freight forwarding company can save you a lot of money. The advantages if you are using the service of a broker are that they will handle the shipment door to door. They will provide you with a drop off location for your small shipment or even come and pick it up. They will also follow up that your shipment is delivered at final destination.
If you have the time to ship your cargo or parcel(s) by container it will be your less costly way of getting it to your destination. Shipping smaller shipments that are less than a full 20 foot container can still be your most economical solution if you use the service of a LCL broker. What this broker does is simply collect multiple smaller shipments and packing them in a container that will be sent with a ship. The time involved is longer than if you ship by air but it is also a lot cheaper. Most containers are a week or so at sea before they reach the continent. Americas to Europe for most Shipping Lines are about 7-10 days crossing. Most major industrial centers have freight forwarding companies covering that area and getting a price and time quote would be the right thing to do. Ask 3 companies for a price quote before deciding

Reformar Inc enters into long-term charter agreement for the Research Vessel Coriolis II with Seaforth Geosurveys.
(Rimouski, Qc); March 15, 2010
Reformar

Reformar Inc. is pleased to announce that it has signed a long term exclusive charter agreement for the Research Vessel RV Coriolis II. This exclusive agreement covers the use of the Coriolis II for the private sector contract. The 50 m former Canadian Coast Guard vessel has been operated by Reformar Inc. of Rimouski, Quebec since 2002. While the ship’s primary function is for academic research and training, Seaforth will also utilize the vessel for its worldwide marine survey operations. The ship, which is certified for operations in both domestic and international waters, is currently being mobilized in Quebec City with various geophysical sensors including multibeam, sidescan sonar, subbottom profiler, magnetometer, USBL, multi-channel seismic data acquisition and processing systems, and geotechnical sampling equipment. The vessel will also be configured with a dynamic positioning system, providing excellent station keeping for geotechnical operations and as an ROV support platform. Based in Rimouski during the summer, it is expected that the Coriolis will be based in Halifax during the winter months to support Seaforth’s domestic and international initiatives. “We are very excited about the opportunity presented with this partnership with Reformar”, stated Seaforth President David Lombardi.
To read the whole press release CLICK HERE!

Over on Maritime Community there was an article about Ship Spares In Transit and what the term means. Here in Canada when a Ship Spares In Transit shipment arrives it is preceded with a pre-notice of arrival containing way bill number, Customs invoice (value for customs), detailed list of all content in shipment including weight. This notice is usually sent from the shipper. Once receiver or receiver agent receives this note they can pre-arrange for custom clearing and forwarding of spares to the ship. The process entails completing various Customs documents that will be processed by Customs once the shipment arrive. In order to complete a process like this the custom broker and carrier has to be defined as a bonded operator. This again means that there is a Bond Insurance filed with the Customs (Federal Government). This Bond is of a value large enough to cover the value of shipments that they would be processing with Customs. There are a variety of different Bonds available and the value can also be very large. It all depends on what the operator would have arranged for and also what the volume of his bond would be. An operator/broker would most likely have sufficient coverage for the volume of business they are processing.
When all these documents are processed and no discrepancy is detected, the actual physical movement of the shipment usually goes rather quickly. In this case we are talking about “Ship Spares In Transit” as it was not to be cleared for payment of duty and taxes. To clear a shipment for and levy duty and taxes would be a whole other process and we will not cover that here.