How do I start with a commercial manager? Send the ship's name or IMO

11 min read12 November 2026

To start with AVS, you send only your ship’s name or IMO number. We look at what public data shows about her last 12 months, such as her trading pattern and idle periods, and a broker calls you to talk it through. It is free, there are no documents to send, nothing to sign and no obligation.

It is a starting point for a conversation, not a full commercial study of your ship. If after the call you want to go further, the charter party and statements of facts let us look at laytime, demurrage, hire and freight. This article explains each step: what we look at, what the call covers, what happens next if you choose, and what the first step does not involve.

Owners usually reach this page when something about their ship does not add up, such as long gaps between employments or claims that never seem to close, but they are not ready to hand anything over. That is why the first step asks for nothing more than a name or a number.

Why does the first step ask for so little?

Most owners will not send charter parties and statements of facts to a firm they do not know. That is sensible. Those documents show your rates, your charterers, your terms and your open claims. You should not hand them over before you know who is reading them and why.

So we ask for nothing private at the start. A ship’s name and IMO number are public. Anyone can look them up. The value of the first step is not in the information you send. It is in what a commercial desk sees when it looks, and in the questions it asks you afterwards.

There is a second reason. Before any owner decides whether a commercial manager is worth it, the useful question is a simple one: is there anything to improve on this ship at all? Public data often gives a first answer, and it costs you nothing to find out.

What is an IMO number, and why is it better than the name?

The IMO number is a seven-digit number given to a ship for her whole life. It stays the same when she changes name, flag or owner. You find it on the ship’s certificates, on her hull or superstructure, and in her registry papers.

Names are not unique. Several ships can carry the same name at the same time, and a ship can have had three names in ten years. The IMO number removes any doubt about which ship we are looking at. If you only have the name, that is fine too; we will confirm the right ship on the call.

What does AVS look at in public data?

Public data about ships comes mainly from AIS, the Automatic Identification System. Ships broadcast their position, speed and status by radio, and services collect these signals into a track. From the track, port calls and waiting periods can be worked out.

For your ship we look at the last 12 months and ask a few questions of the data.

• Trading pattern. Where she loads and discharges, which regions she works in, and whether that has changed during the year.
• Idle periods. Times when she was not moving and not obviously working cargo: waiting at anchor, lying off a port, or between employments.
• Ballast legs. Voyages without cargo between one employment and the next, and how long they were.
• Time in port. How long each call took compared with similar calls, which can hint at congestion or slow cargo work.
• Gaps between employments. How many days seem to pass between the end of one job and the start of the next.

An idle day here means a day the ship was not employed and not off-hire for repairs or dry-docking. Idle days matter because the ship still costs money every day: crew, insurance, finance and maintenance. We explain why they are often an owner’s largest loss in Where a small ship owner loses money after the fixture.

Why public data is a starting point, not an answer

AIS data has limits. Signals drop out in some areas, a ship at anchor may be waiting for cargo or for a repair, and a long port stay may be planned and paid. Read alone, the data can mislead.

That is why the first step is a conversation and not a report. We tell you what we see; you tell us what was really behind it. A week at anchor might be waiting for a berth under a charter party that pays demurrage, which is fine. Or it might be waiting for the next cargo because nobody started looking early enough, which is a cost. Only the two of us together can tell which.

What does the call cover?

A broker calls you to talk through what the data shows. There is no script, but a call usually covers four things.

1. What we see. The ship’s trading pattern over the last 12 months, the periods when she was idle, and anything that stood out.
2. What was behind it. Your side of the story: the employment she had, the reasons for a long stop, what you planned and what happened instead.
3. What questions it raises. For example, whether the next employment is usually lined up before she comes open, how demurrage claims are handled, or whether hire arrives on time.
4. Whether we could help. An honest view of whether commercial management would change anything for this ship, and if not, why not.

The call is a starting point for a conversation, not a full commercial breakdown. If there is no fit, we part there, and you have had a second opinion on your ship from a commercial desk at no cost.

Questions worth having ready

You do not need to prepare anything. But owners who get the most out of the call usually have a rough answer to a few questions.

What if the data shows nothing wrong?

Sometimes it does not. A ship on a long time charter with a good charterer, few gaps and short port stays may simply be well employed. Then the honest answer on the call is that there is little to change, and we say so.

That answer is still useful. It tells you the ship’s last year looks sound from the outside, and it gives you a reference point for later: when the time charter ends, when you buy a second ship, or when the person who runs the commercial side today moves on. Many owners first think about the commercial side at exactly those moments, and it helps to have had the conversation before the pressure starts.

What happens next, if you want to go further?

Nothing happens after the call unless you ask for it. If you do, the path has four more steps, and you decide at each one whether to continue.

The deeper look

If the call raises questions, the documents can answer them. The charter party is the contract between the owner and the charterer. The statement of facts (SOF) is the port agent’s record of what happened in port and when. With them, a commercial desk can check:

• Laytime. Was the notice of readiness valid and on time, and did laytime start when it should have?
• Demurrage. What was claimed, what was collected, and what is still open or close to the time bar, the deadline in the charter party for presenting a claim?
• Hire and freight. What was paid late or short, by which charterer, and whether deductions were agreed.

This step is optional. It is for owners who want to understand the commercial side of a ship in more detail, whether or not they later hand it over.

Parameters

If you want AVS to manage the ship, you set the parameters first: the minimum rates, the trades, the charterers you accept, and the longest period the ship may be committed for. The desk works within them. Anything outside them comes to you before it is fixed, and the parameters are reviewed with you every month. We explain how this keeps you in control in Will I lose control of my ship with a commercial manager?

Agreement

The terms are agreed per ship. The fee is a share of the ship’s earnings plus a fixed daily fee, with the rates agreed for each ship. On managed ships we are paid by the owner only and take no commission from charterers. The minimum term is 12 months, because a voyage takes from two weeks to a month and the effect of management shows over several voyages. It can be ended with 60 days’ notice. We cover the contract terms in Commercial management contract: minimum term, notice period and how to leave.

Handover

At handover, the commercial side moves to the desk: finding employment, negotiating fixtures, following each voyage, and handling laytime, demurrage, hire and freight. Hire and freight are paid through AVS, so every payment shows in your monthly report. Management can also bring bunker credit of up to 60 days, with AVS standing as counterparty together with the owner. The crew, repairs and technical management stay where they are, with you and your technical manager.

What the first step does not involve

Owners are right to ask what a free first step hides. So here is the plain list.

• No documents. Not the charter party, not statements of facts, not accounts. Only the name or IMO.
• Nothing to sign. No agreement, no non-disclosure form, no letter of intent.
• No cost. The look at public data and the call are free.
• No obligation. If you do not want to go further after the call, that is the end of it.
• No written report. The first step is a conversation. A full commercial review needs the documents, and only you decide whether to share them.
• No promises about results. Every ship is different. On the call we talk about what we see, not about numbers we cannot yet know.

Who is on the other end?

AVS Shipbrokers LLC is a chartering and commercial management firm in Dubai, in Churchill Tower, office 507, Business Bay, on the market since 2020. We run chartering desks for dry bulk, tankers and container ships, and commercial management for owners of one to five ships trading anywhere on the range from China to Europe, including Africa, the Persian Gulf and everything in between. On managed ships the owner sets the parameters and gets one report a month, and we are paid by the owner only.

To see what the work looks like on a real ship, read the anonymous case study: a Handysize owner, 9 months of steady time charter and 100% of demurrage collected. The full description of the service is on the commercial management page.

The first step

Send us the ship’s name or IMO. We look at what public data shows about her last 12 months, such as her trading pattern and idle periods, and a broker calls you to talk it through. It is free, with no documents, nothing to sign and no obligation. If you later want a deeper look, the charter party and statements of facts let us go into laytime, demurrage, hire and freight.