Interview With Jebb Kitchen, Managing Director Bibby Line ...

1 Interview With jebb kitchen , Managing Director Bibby LineBibby News recently interviewed jebb kitchen , Managing Director of Bibby Line, who will soon be celebrating 40 years with the Bibby Line Group, which equates to an incredible 20% of the history of the company. Q: 40 years with the Group is an incredible achievement. Tell us about your career : I started my career with the company as a deck cadet in 1975 joining my first ship the general cargo vessel MV Warwickshire in Green Bay Wisconsin, discharging a full cargo of plywood from the Philippines. I was standing on the jetty watching the vessel berth in awe at its size when she took on a list of about 10 degrees or an angle of loll, which was slightly concerning!

2 I spent the next three years of my apprenticeship sailing on a large variety of vessels that the company owned at the time (from LPG tankers, OBO s to car carriers and container ships) with a couple of spells at nautical college in Liverpool. From the late 70 s through to 1988 I served in various ranks and attended nautical colleges in Hull and finally South Shields where I gained my Masters Certificate. I still remember attending the exam centre in Gosforth on a rainy Monday morning in 1986 to be told I had passed. I was married by then and having had to fund my way through college, off-pay and paying all college and exam fees my wife and I had zilch in the bank by the end.

3 So joining my first vessel, MV Lincolnshire, pictured below, as Chief Officer was welcome financial respite. I finished my career at sea in 1988 having successfully applied for a position in operations in Liverpool, pictured below. I spent three very enjoyable years working closely with John Harding and realising very early on that those people back in the office actually knew what they were talking about and worked extremely hard to assist those serving on board! During this period I undertook in correspondence the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers exams, reacquainting myself with my friend and fellow ex-seafarer Howard Woodcock at the prize giving in London.

4 In 1991 I was offered the position of the London-based commercial manager based out of The Baltic Exchange Chambers until the IRA decided otherwise and destroyed the beautiful exchange building. I was travelling back to my home in Shropshire on that Friday evening, having left the office at around 1730. I emerged out of Baker Street tube station completely ignorant of what had just transpired, until my mobile erupted with calls from caring colleagues. I spent the next decade acting as the commercial manager, working for both Bibby Line, but also working with our new partners in Botany Bay.

5 Some notable highlights were the disposal of our VLGC Staffordshire , which was a fairly drawn-out negotiation taking about 18 months to conclude including a very amusing week in New York closing the deal, but it was worth it in the end. I would also highlight the contracting of Oxfordshire our new building mid-size LPG vessel With the economic collapse in SE Asia in late 1997 we consolidated our commercial manage-ment, pooling both the LPG fleet and separately the chemical tankers, which changed my role quite dramatically. However in 2000 we joined the partnership that became Foreland Shipping and I spent the next three years assisting with the development of the fleet of Roll on Roll off vessels for the UK Ministry of Defence.

6 That last decade was an amazing roller coaster ride, transforming the marine elements of the group into what we see today. Selling the LPG fleet was rewarding, but opportunistic; however the strategically-driven disposal of the chemical tankers was even more so for me personally. I became the Managing Director of Bibby Line in : Do you have any interesting stories you could share about your life at sea?A: Oh yes! At the age of 57 I am finding myself increasingly reminiscing, rather than doing what I should and that is selectively forgetting the past and thinking more about what opportunities the future may hold for shipping.

7 However my life at sea holds many fond memories. My first was being told as a first-trip cadet that we would be transiting The Suez Canal, which at the time was a War Zone and meant double-pay for all those on board! Memories of crumpled military tanks on the eastern bank, wrecks of ships in the Great Bitter Lakes, trapped there from the beginning of the last closure and the rich cock-tail of characters from the boatmen and pilots that make the whole transit experience so memorable. Transiting the Panama Canal was equally memorable when you witness the results of the engineering endeavours that created the huge lock systems and the Gaillard Cut.

8 They really are very interesting sto-ries behind the construction of both canals. Another memorable personal experience was being treated like royalty by the doctors and nursing staff of The Railwayman s Hospital of Dalian in China whilst being treated for injuries sustained during a typhoon at sea. It was December 1978 and China and America had re-opened diplomatic relations and I was admitted with quite serious injuries to my right leg. The treatment was not only first-class, but delivered with such grace. Every day my surgeon would attend to administer pain-relief, including acu-puncture, but then spend half an hour asking me to check his English grammar for various medical phrases.

9 Those of you who know me will realise the comical side of this. I celebrated Christmas in the hospital where the staff put on a special lunch for me, their sole objective eventually became clear, or perhaps not that clear, which was to ply me with as much beer as was physically possible! On New Year s Day they found a Western film for me to watch, Citizen Kane! Hold on a minute, I might be a bit busted-up, but I am warm, clothed, well fed, receiving the best treatment possible in a city in Northern China and I am relaxing watching Citizen Kane. These were some of the warmest and most generous individuals I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.

10 One other memorable experience was the sight of over 160 dry bulk carriers anchored in The Chesapeake Bay, including MV Dorsetshire, delayed for months on end waiting to load coal in Norfolk Virginia due to the protracted miners strike in the USA of 1981. Q: What changes have you seen in the shipping sector whilst you ve been with the Group ?A: It is still a highly cyclical business, boom to bust, with lemming like charges into commercial oblivion. The most notable changes that I have witnessed are how management and control has continued to cede shorewards with improvement in communications. The increasingly complex regimes of both national and international legislation and the emergence in the last decade of China as a super-economy, catching the world of shipping dramatically short.