Category Archives: ships

Muslim Pirates

Posted on 5 May 2014 by Laleh Khalili

Pirate Utopias is a strange little book – at once a bit disappointing and a portal to further discovery.  The concept behind it is fabulous enough (about which more below) and the blurbs on the back -by Christopher Hill, Marcus … Continue reading →

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Factory Ships

Posted on 23 April 2014 by Laleh Khalili

Stories about enslaved fishermen on factory ships occasionally appear on BBC and other news sources.   A recent one tells us about the interdiction of one such ship by Thai police, which then lets the ship go.  Apparently Thai fishing … Continue reading →

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Piracy and Counter-piracy

Posted on 18 April 2014 by Laleh Khalili

There is a kind of romance around piracy.  It is the romance of anti-authority figures and of a life lived not just in the margins but outside the boundaries.   Just think about the masses of novels and films about piracy … Continue reading →

Posted in finance and insurance, logistics, piracy, political economy, ports, readings, shipping conditions, ships, transport | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Sailing on dhows and working in the auto industry

Posted on 15 April 2014 by Laleh Khalili

  A facebook friend sent me a URL to a blogpost which introduced Sons of Sinbad by Alan Villiers…  What struck me was the contention that the book was “probably the only work of western travel literature that focuses on the seafarers of … Continue reading →

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Robot ships

Posted on 4 April 2014 by Laleh Khalili

This Wired piece (which reads a bit like a PR statement from Rolls Royce) tells us that autonomous systems [i.e. personless] are going to make their way into large vessels in the near future, and VTT and Rolls-Royce are already working … Continue reading →

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Poems about ships

Posted on 1 April 2014 by Laleh Khalili

The poem has a whiff (or more than a whiff) of orientalism about it – but I love the last verse: ‘Cargoes’ Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir, Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, With a cargo of ivory, … Continue reading →

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Beirut

Posted on 29 March 2014 by Laleh Khalili

Sitting on a rooftop overlooking container ships leaving the port of Beirut and sailing into the haze of the Mediterranean and other container ships powering towards the port from the west makes me VERY VERY happy I am going to … Continue reading →

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London comes closer to the sea

Posted on 26 March 2014 by Laleh Khalili

Dubai Ports World runs London Gateway which will be competing against Felixstowe and Southampton to be the top container port in the UK.  Like many other DPW concerns, there seems to be an iron (or ham-) fisted determination to not let workers unionise – although … Continue reading →

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Interconnections

Posted on 26 March 2014 by Laleh Khalili

Dead Water by Simon Ings is the most fabulously dystopian novel about shipping, containers, ships, airships, tsunami, shipping, and dastardly deed that can happen when vast numbers of ships are circumnavigating the globes with vast numbers of containers on board.  One … Continue reading →

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On the high seas

Posted on 26 March 2014 by Laleh Khalili

I am really looking forward to my trip aboard a container ship… The ship above is a liquid natural gas carrier, so it will have a different feel, but the feeling of being on the seas… It seems to be … Continue reading →

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