Research · Ships · framework
Clarksons wrote the model. This firm copies it.
Clarksons brokers ships and sells Clarksons Research, the industry's price benchmark. It works because the research is aggregated, the methodology is public, and no single deal is visible. That is the rule Safewaterline Intelligence runs on. In ships themselves, the firm has little to add to the benchmark and a lot to add below it.
What exists
- Prices. Clarksons, VesselsValue and the Baltic Exchange publish second hand values, newbuild prices and freight rates by type, size and age, daily to weekly.
- Lending practice. Ship mortgages, loan to value covenants, minimum value clauses and arrest procedures are a century old and codified in every major flag state.
- Registries. Liberia, the Marshall Islands and Panama flag about four in ten tonnes of the world fleet. Open registries are the norm, and lenders hold mortgages in all three.
What is missing
- Small fleets. The benchmarks price Capesize and VLCC tonnage well. A 15 year old Handysize bulker or a 3,000 TEU feeder owned by a two ship company is priced by one broker's opinion.
- Enforcement by jurisdiction. Arrest is fast in Singapore, Rotterdam and Gibraltar and slow elsewhere. The value of a mortgage depends on where the ship trades, and nobody scores that.
- Regulatory decay. CII ratings, EEXI and the EU ETS cut the earning life of older tonnage. Clarksons publishes the ratings; the residual effect on a specific age band is not published as a curve.
- Operator credit. Charterer quality and charter tenor carry the value of a ship the same way an offtaker contract carries a GPU.
The framework
| Factor | Evidence the desk reads | What moves the score |
|---|---|---|
| Obsolescence | age, CII rating, scrubber and ballast water status, scrap price | a D or E rated ship over 15 years trends to scrap value |
| Resale depth | sales and purchase volume in the size band, last 90 days | standard bulkers and tankers deep; specialised tonnage thin |
| Enforcement | flag, trading pattern, arrest friendly ports on the route | Marshall Islands flag trading Asia to Europe scores higher than a river fleet in one jurisdiction |
| Counterparty | charterer, tenor, rate versus the index | time charter to a major at above index scores high; spot scores low |
When a curve is published
Not soon. The desk will license Clarksons or VesselsValue data for its own appraisals and publish only the risk score and the jurisdiction view, which the benchmarks do not cover. A value curve for ships would be a weaker copy of one that already exists.