On the basis of this example, the challenge is to create sufficient financial strength
when times are good to avoid unwelcome decisions such as selling ships for scrap
when times are bad. It is the company with a weak cashflow and no reserves that
gets pushed out during depressions and the company with a strong cashflow that
buys the ships cheap and survives to make profits in the next shipping boom. It is
not therefore the ship, the administration, or the method of financing that determines
success or failure, but the way in which these are blended to combine profitability
with a cashflow sufficiently robust to survive the depressions that lie in wait to trap
unwary investors