History

  
  Beaver Ships Agents BV
was established as a limited liability company on the 1st of May 1997, after the Stork Line Agency was taken over from Dammers Agenturen BV. There were many suggestions with regard to the name of the company, but every time we checked a name with the Chamber of Commerce in Rotterdam, we found that it already existed in some way, which could of course, have created problems if these companies ever protested.
Finally the name Beaver Ships Agents was suggested as in the English language, this animal is considered to be an active and hardworking animal and it was obvious that it would be hard work to make this operation successful. When this name was checked with the Chamber of Commerce it appeared there were no clashes with other companies and parties involved, and so we decided to go for this. It was only after a while that we found out there were other meanings of the word, of which most were not very decent and on several occasions we were confronted with this! Unfortunately, we landed ourselves in this predicament simply because English is not our native tongue!		  
  Stork Line's history.
It all started in the late seventies with small coasters with names like 'Courier' and 'Courtfield, owned and/or chartered by Allied Coasters Guernsey which were carrying Breda Beer from Holland to Mistley UK, for which the cargo was booked through the agency of Dammers en van der Heide Agenturen Bv at Rotterdam. In those days KNSM was running a service from Holland to the Channel Islands and Breda Beer was one of their customers. When KNSM decided to change this break bulk service into a container service, they tried to induce their customers to load all cargo in containers. For Breda Beer this was a huge problem since their pallets with kegs didn't fit into a normally dry box containers (and they still don't today). The link between Dammers, Breda Beer and Allied Coasters was quickly made, after which these coasters started running a service between Holland and Guernsey and Jersey as well. This was often done in combination with Guernsey, Jersey and Mistley UK, where beer was the main products to the islands and cargoes like spirits were loaded again in Mistley for discharge in Holland.
Soon this became a weekly service. A freight battle started at KNSM had already lost one of their major customers and of course wanted to avoid losing more and Allied Coasters and Dammers were actively canvassing this new service. It soon became evident that the market was too small for two lines to make a living and on the 15th of Jully 1980, a contract was signed between KNSM and Allied Coasters, which resulted in the smooth running for all parties for more than 14 years. In December 1994, KNSM pulled out of this contract because of the bad results of the service and with that they also pulled out of trade with the Channel Islands completely and decided to concentrate on their Russian and Mediterranean services. KSNM being one of the eldest Dutch shipping companies had meanwhile amalgamated into the Nedlloyd Group who in turn, amalgamated with P&O. Recently it was published that the name KNSM will disappear completely and their services will continue under the name P&O/Nedlloyd.

Thus Allied Coasters had two options left, to continue on their own, or to stop the service completely. They decided to continue which was to the benefit of the islands as otherwise one vital link would have disappeared completely completely and they tried to fight themselves back into the market, which proved to be very hard. In March 1995 they decided to end the charter contract for m.v. Jana and put in their own ship m.v. Isis, which had been acquired the year before, into the Rotterdam services. This service was changed at the same time from weekly to fortnightly, enabling them to make combinations with other ports thus saving a lot on the operation costs of the ship and hopefully to change the service for better results again. In order to try and save on expenses, the service swapped Rotterdam for Ridderkerk in March 1997. Ridderkerk is a town with 45,000 citizens, 15 km away from Rotterdam and is located along one of the major rivers. In February 1998, the service had built up so much cargo volume that it changed into a weekly service again, and though costs have to be watched carefully, is presently running smoothly and will certainly continue to do so into the future. The service is now maintained with two ships the Isis and Burhou I which always swap after a couple of weeks, to keep the work attractive for the master as well as the crew.