" NAILING " STEAMERS.

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 9, 10 January 1920, Page 11

" NAILING " STEAMERS.

A pernicious practice in the freight market is that of "nailing" steamers (says a writer in a New York paper). To "nail" a steamer consists, on the part of a broker, in persuading an owner that, provided he is given the exclusive handling of that owner's business, hu will be able to fix at a better rate than other brokers. In everyday life this practice is commonly known as bluff. However, under whatever name it masquerades, the result is the same. Owners, in view of the glowing accounts given them by the astute broker, will insist on rates several points above the current market, and in some cases end by accepting rates below those which could have been obtained by an outside broker had no "nailing" been , practised. Another system of " nailing'" consists in suggesting that boats are wanted for certain trades when; as a matter of fact, no orders are on the market, and thus attract offers from owners in the hope of, getting names ;n boats to use as pawns in the game of bhiff, .which certain brokers have reduced to a science.

Tlie loss to owners and annoyance, to charterers ts,, of course, a consideration which never enters the mind of the specialist in the gentle ait of "nailing."