The easiest part of becoming a shipowner is sounding like one. The hard part is paying for the ship as Sunil Kapoor details.
Out of the blue, I got a call from someone I had known for many years — a senior figure at a prominent commodity trading company in Geneva.
“Are you still active? I’ve just recommended you to a potential owner. Someone who doesn’t just want to buy a ship. He wants to build a shipping company.”
That changes things. A ship acquisition is one conversation. Building a company is another. I said yes.
What I didn’t know then was how this had started.
It started with a drink. As most shipping deals do.
Brokers have a sixth sense. The moment they smell a potential owner in the room — someone with ambition, a commodity connection, and a vague idea about ships — the rounds begin. One drink to establish rapport. Two to talk market. Three to discuss opportunity. By the fifth, someone is becoming a shipowner.
By the time the Geneva call reached me, the drinking was done. The plan was made. The broker believed. The company name looked respectable in emails. Commercial discussions had apparently gone well.
All that was missing was someone the market would recognise.
That was me.
I was brought in as technical manager. In truth, they wanted the credibility that came with the name — someone the industry regarded as a shipmanagement guru. And that, without anyone saying it out loud, was enough to change the atmosphere entirely.
Class engaged. Banks listened. Sellers relaxed. The conversation shifted from “if” to “when.” Nobody asked the questions that still needed asking.
That should have been the first warning. It wasn’t.
From my side, everything looked routine. A decent modern bulker. A well-known US-listed owner. Clean records. No technical issues whatsoever.
The MOU was signed. Shipmanagement agreed and executed.
Now it felt real.
Handover ports were discussed. Crew identified. Advance joiners placed on standby. Documentation circulated. Timelines agreed. Every question had an answer. Everything looked exactly as it should.
Funding, I was told, was pending.
In shipping, pending can mean tomorrow. It can also mean eventually. Either way, it rarely stops anything. So things continued.
Every call was confident. Every delay was minor. Every problem was being addressed. Except the deposit.
The deposit was almost ready. There were KYC issues. A banking delay. One final confirmation from someone who was apparently either travelling, boarding a flight, or just about to land — depending on which update you caught.
None of this felt unusual at the time. Momentum carried everything forward.
Days passed. Then more days. Updates began repeating themselves. Calls got shorter. Messages became more carefully worded. Confidence stayed. Clarity quietly slipped.
By then, even Belview Inc looked like a proper company. On paper, at least.
I had a sinking feeling. Years of experience telling me quietly that something was not right. That the funds may not actually be there. I raised it. I was assured — everything was fine, it was simply a matter of time, the money was coming. I stayed. Everyone stayed.
The broker remained hopeful. Each person assumed the next move would come from someone else. Charterers were lined up, ready to fix vessel for her next cargo. No one was ready to stop. So, everyone waited.
There was a quiet tension — would it close today, or maybe tomorrow? Each update carried just enough hope to keep things moving, even when it sounded identical to the one before.
Things dragged. Advance joiners grew anxious. Crew on standby ran out of patience. And somewhere in the background, one question nobody wanted to ask out loud — who was going to end this.
In the end, it was the seller. No announcement. No confrontation. Instructions went to the master. The anchor lifted quietly. MV DSI Bramen sailed out from the anchorage. Just like that, it was over.
What remained in the ship’s wake: Unsettled bills. Crew wages. Messages turning into claims. Legal action in some cases. And something less visible. The idea of becoming a shipowner — built over conversations, confidence, and expectation. As the ship disappeared over the horizon, so did that.
And much like Cinderella at midnight — the brokers, the owners, the charterers, the team — everyone who had been so present, so confident, so ready — quietly disappeared with it. No calls. No messages. No explanations. Just silence.
