Message on mobile – US$900,000

When fixing a tanker to carry vegoil the charterer asked whether the tanks had been washed.  The owner’s broker telephoned the charterer’s broker to inform him that the tanks had been “washed but not fresh water rinsed”.  The charterer’s broker, who was contacted on his mobile phone while having lunch in a restaurant, mistook the message as being  “fresh water washed”.  Salt left on the tank walls from a seawater rinse contaminated the vegoil to the tune of US$ 900,000.