The 2022 underwater images of the wreck of the Endurance  in pristine condition under the Antarctic ice graced the front pages of the press across the world and captured the imagination of young and old.

In this episode, we speak with Captain Freddie Ligthelm; one of the men responsible for piloting the polar vessel S.A. Agulhas II through the ice on the expedition to find the sunken ship. He gives us a detailed account of the mission and what it took to achieve their goal.

A series of unfortunate events in the last 18 months have rattled the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa - home to the crucial gateways of Durban and Richards Bay.

Coming at a time when supply chains worldwide were already under considerable strain from the aftershocks of Covid 19 or other events, the riots and floods had a crippling effect on the movement of goods and the local economy.

In this episode,  Jeremy Prain and Andrew Pike (partners in the Shipping & Logistics team at Bowmans) discuss and attempt to make sense of the practical and legal implications of these events . They also consider how these calamities might accelerate policy shifts by the SA government to liberalise port and terminal operations, and the opportunities presented to the private sector. 

    

In May 2021, the X-Press Pearl  caught fire 18 km off the west coast of Sri Lanka and spilled 1680 tons of spherical pieces of plastic or “nurdles”; the preproduction plastic used to manufacture a wide range of end products.

The incident sparked world-wide attention to the environmental dangers posed by these little balls of plastic, which could lead to tighter international regulations for those involved in the shipment of this product.

In this episode, I speak to my partner at Bowmans, Lana Stockton, who has extensive experience responding to nurdle spills off the coast of South Africa. We discuss, amongst other things, the legal and practical implications for ship owners, charterers and other affected parties as they negotiate fines, clean-ups and other challenges with the authorities and regulators.