Glossary

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• BCMO

  Dockers' Employment Agency for day-labourers until the 1992 law. No longer exists in Dunkirk. 

• Ballast tank

  A space in the bottom of the vessel, underneath the holds, which is filled with fuel or water to create ballast or alter the vessel's trim.

• Bill of Lading (B/L)

  Document showing the ownership of the goods entrusted by the shipper to a shipowner. it is issued by the shipowner and enables the consignee to claim the goods from the shipowner.

• Boatage

  Placing the mooring lines of a vessel on bollards or dolphins and removing them.

• Bollard

  Thick round-headed post installed on a quay for mooring ships.

• Bolster

  Standardised platform for intermodal transport.

• Break-bulk / Deconsolidation

  Distribution of goods upon arrival at destination to different consignees.

• Broker

  Specialist buying or selling goods or negotiating insure, freight rates, securities or other matters on behalf of a principal, in return for an agreed commission; the sales or transactions are negotiated in the principal's name and not his own.
  There are several categories of brokers, the main ones being:
  - interpreting brokers and shipbrokers (sworn), 
  - chartering brokers (when acting for the cargo at export, they find the vessel),
  - chartering brokers (when acting for the shipowner, they find the cargo),
  - ship sale and purchase brokers,
  - sworn brokers,
  - sworn insurance brokers.

• Bunkering

  Loading of ship's fuel.

• C&F

  Cost and Freight included in export price, insurance excluded.