Warning Against Reederei T. Schulte

Ships owners are probably the greediest category of people known.

fr123 writes in the thread What An Exiting Forum This Is that freighter journeys are rip-offs. Unfortunately he is becoming more and more right about that. It's not that many years since a freighter journey normaly was around 120.- DM (Deutschmarks, corresponding to 1/2 Euro) per day, now they are at least 110.- - 140.- Euros per day, without any improvement in what's being offered, rather the contrary.

In Scandinavia the ferry companies demand that their seaman shall not have to pay tax, so that they can pay them lower. But who's then paying for seamens' and their families' welfare and healthcare? The land working tax payers! Why should land working tax payers contribute to even more profits for greedy ships owners?

On board the ships the responsibility gets more and more divided. On the CCNI ANGOL, by which I travelled from Rotterdam to Iquique in 1999, one company owned the ship, another hired the East German officers, a third hired the other East European officers, a third hired the Filipinos, a fourth company on the tax paradise Isle of Man "ran the route", i.e. was responsibel for schedule, cargo on- and off-loading and a fifth company, the Chilean CCNI, chartered the ship. The poor captain didn't even know who had the last word! Is it strange the officers and crew get frustrated?

Six CMA CGM ships have recently been sold to Global Shipsleasing on Cyprus, an Indian company. Why? To make it cheaper. When somebody earns money offering a company to run their own ships for a lower rate than what the company did themselves, who's paying in the end? The officers and crew, who gets worse conditions, less overtime, less "extras", cabins without carpets etc. etc.

To transport pavement stone from China or India to Oslo, Norway cost about the same as transporting the same volume/weight of stone by train from Oslo to Trondheim (a bit more than 500 km). On my latest journey from Melbourne to Tilbury we carried fresh onions! FRESH ONIONS! As if onions don't grow in Europe. There's something principally wrong if it pays to transport fresh onions from Australia to Europe.

Ships' transport is far too cheap! And how can it be that cheap? Because ship transport operates outside every national law and the employees can be treated just the way the greedy ships owners like. A captain on the CAP CLEVELAND told me he had once been working for another ships company and his ship was calling an Arab state. By loading a stewador got killed. It wasn't the ship's or any of the crew's fault, but still the authorities took arrest in the ship. What did the greedy ships' company do? They sent a telex to the authorities, asking them to arrest the captain and release the ship!!! Now, the authorities weren't interested in any arrested captain, they wanted money. So they came to the captain again (that's why he knew what his employer had done) and told him so. So he payed them 1500 US dollars, and everybody was happy, the ship was released and the ships' company even thanked the captain. He however became so bitter about what they had tried to do to him that he resigned. Then they asked him if he had a receipt for the bribe in the Arab port. Of course he hadn't! So they withdrew the 1500 dollars from his last salary.

So if some officers just don't manage to be nice to the passengers, it's understandable and a result of the greediness of the ships company charging you 110.- - 140.- Euro to "let" you travel on the ship.

Of course there are exceptions, especially small family owned ships companies, with a few ships and where the captain has a personal contact with the ship's owner regularly. Oltmann, Hanseste and macs (all German) are examples of such ships companies.

But there are also those being even greedier than the average ship's owner. Reederei T. Schulte is one such owner. You are, as a freighter traveller, hereby warned against Reederei T. Schulte, who's ships for example run for Hamburg Süd.

I travelled by the m.v. CAP CLEVELAND in January-February this year. It was my worst freighter journey ever. It starts already by the time of booking, where you are supposed to sign a "Letter of Indemnity". It reads as follows (and the misspellings and funny language is not mine):

Signed by person granted a passage whether signed on the ships article or otherwise

Name of Vessel:

Name of person:

To the Owners of above mentioned vessel, in consideration of your allowing me to make a voayage from ...... to .......

I hereby undertake to make no claim of any nature whatsoever against you your servants or agents whether of not such claim be occasioned by the negligence, act of default of you or any of you, not to claim against any person whom you or any of you may be liable to indemnify by contract or otherwise and I also agree to relinquish any right which a I may acquire to participate in salvage money.

I also agree to indemnify you and each of you against any claim whatsoever by any person arising out of any act, omission or default by me during the voyage.

I also undertake to insure and indemnify you against any charges and expenses which you may pay or become liable to pay for hospital, medical, burial or repatriation or maintenance on my account, ad further to insure and indemnify you against any claims whatsoever by any person arising out of any act, omission or default by me during the voyage.

It is further expressly agreed hereby that throughout this Letter of Indemnity the word "Owners" shall include the servants and agents of the Owners of the said vessel, whether afloat or ashore, and any person or persons whom the said Owners may be liable to Indeminfy against such claims by contract or otherwise.

This Letter of Guarantee shall be governed by German Law to the exclusion of the rights of conflicts of Law. Place of jurisdiction shall be Hamburg.

Signature: Date

Address:

Where the passenger is the wife......

Did you read that!? Already here you should actually decide not to sail with this company. But it gets worse.

I boarded the CAP CLEVELAND 7th January in Antwerpe to find out that
- not only was there no refrigiator in my cabin, what I knew when I booked, what on the deck plan looked like a sofa was definitely not but something plastic on which you definitely couldn't sit, hardly unpack your suitcase, as it wasn't deep enough,
- right outside my cabin porthole there were superstructure constructions above, to the starboard and to the port, and the extremely noisy fan of the funnel,
- there wasn't a single book in the officers' "dayroom" (a corner of the mess, already to small to seat all officers and passengers at the same time!),
- there wasn't a deck chair,
- carpets on the floor were rare, seemed only to exist in the owners', the captain's and the chief's cabin. That carpets is not only a matter of comfort but also of safety was very clearly shown February 7th. We then ploughed through 12 m high waves running 3 knots only, computer screens on the bridge flew around, two lanternes got destroyed and two containers damaged. The very nice captain had in the meantime let me move in to the owners' cabin and my fellow passengers to the pilot's cabin. They were identical, above eachother, the only difference was that the bed was slithly narrower and carpets lacked in the pilot's cabin. So while I had no problem in that weather in the owners' cabin my poor fellow passenger sat terrified in the corner of his sofa, holding to his luggage, while furniture and everything else loose, was moving in all directions on his slippery deck.

We had of course never barbecue on deck, as there were neither deck chairs, deck tables nor food enough for that type of activity. You could neither ever have "some more" of todays' lunch or dinner.

And for this I was charged 112.- Euro per day for 36 days.

You have got my warning. Never, ever board a ship belonging to Reederei T. Schulte.