Free Made on Earth by Wolfgang Korn

and has set a course of west-south-west. The risk of pirate attacks has passed, but now the crew are faced with a new threat: boredom. All they have to do is stay on a direct course for 3,000 kilometres, across the middle of the Indian Ocean. Then they will change course, and head for the Red Sea.
    This is a good time to learn more about the World Star . The World Star is owned by a German shipping business, but sails on behalf of a group of Norwegian companies. The group of Norwegian companies are run by an Austrian boss, who is based at their headquarters in Hong Kong. The ship flies the flag of Panama, the captain is German, the on-board engineer is British and the rest of the crew are from the Philippines. The ship was built at the Daewoo shipyard in South Korea, and is currently carrying goods from China, India, Thailand and Bangladesh. It is also carrying Australian goods to be shipped to markets in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Spain, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and the Baltic region.
     
Logistics in the Age of Globalisation
Our fleeces and their raw materials will have travelled over 25,000 kilometres before reaching their final market destination of Hamburg. That is a relatively short journey compared to many other products. The individual materials that make up a thermos flask, for example, may travel up to three times around the world before the finished flask reaches its marketplace.
Experts at large companies are constantly asking: how can we break down the production process to make it more cost effective? Where are the cheapest raw materials and manufacturers? Where is the best value workforce? The success or failure of globalised production is all down to the cost of transporting materials around the world. Thanks to container ships, transport costs are so low they have virtually no impact on profits.
How much does it cost to transport a bottle of wine from Australia to Europe? In 2005, it cost €1,000 euros (about £675 pounds) to send a shipping container from Asia to Europe. Nine hundred and ninety-nine crates of wine, each holding six bottles of wine, can fit into a single shipping container. This works out at a shipping cost of €0.16 euros (about £0.10 pounds) per bottle. To send a fleece body warmer from Asia to Europe costs even less, only five or ten euro cents per item. The difference in cost depends on how well the container is packed. If oil does start running out in the next few years, the price of shipping will rise. No one really knows how much longer the individual materials that make up a thermos flask can be sent three times around the world before entering the marketplace.
 
    5 October 2005
    The World Star has left Saudi Arabia’s container port in Jeddah two hours late. Although the ship can carry up to 8,400 containers, and left Singapore with 8,023 containers, the number has now dropped to 7,923. One hundred containers have been ‘extinguished’ (removed and not replaced) in Jeddah. If these containters were placed in one long line, they’d cover a distance of 48 kilometres – about the same distance as from Düsseldorf to Cologne (or central London to Gatwick Airport).
    Though container ships filled with yellow, blue and red metal boxes seem boring on the outside, the contents of the containers themselves are fascinating. From Australian wines to electrical appliances to tonnes of fabric, the containers can hold absolutely anything. Removal companies are also using shipping containers more and more frequently, for customers who spend their lives having to travel for work from Europe to Asia or vice versa.
    The crew can only guess at what goods the World Star is carrying based on the cargo list. From the outside, all 7,923 containers are identical. But what’s going on with container C 53-786-23-894 in the fourth row, fifth level up? A red fluid is leaking out of it and running down the other containers in its block. It looks like it’s bleeding. According to the cargo