In your name
DWTBIT is never the account holder. We hold a mandate to fix and to pay, and you hold the signature above it.
Freight − Vessel cost = Operating spread
Our business is to execute profitable voyages and capture the operating spread.
One cargo interest pays us. We pay eleven other parties. What survives is the spread — and on this voyage it was $68,203 on $809,115 of freight.
The order is the problem. Four parties are paid before the cargo interest pays us. That eighteen-day gap is the only thing capital funds.
What is left is a rate difference. The ship cost $9,500 a day. The cargo paid the equivalent of $11,586 a day. Thirty-two point seven days of that gap is the entire result.
One voyage, from open account to close — in five phases.
Scroll to Phase 1In Phase 1, an account is opened in your name, funded by you, and a written mandate is handed to the desk.
Before anything is fixed, there is one thing on the plot: an account. Everything else on this page is built around it.
Any name you like, at your bank, with your signature over it. Nothing is opened in ours, and nothing is held by us.
You wire the working capital for one voyage and you stay the signatory. The balance sits exactly where it started.
We receive a written mandate to trade that balance for one defined voyage. It names the trade, it names the limits, and it can be withdrawn.
In Phase 2, one ship is chartered in for one trip, and hire goes out of the account.
The desk works a defined trade lane and a defined size band. We are not looking for any ship — we are looking for the right one, for these dates.
One vessel, chartered in on time charter for a single trip. Delivery to redelivery, with a fixed daily rate agreed before anything is paid.
Hire, and the bunkers on board at delivery, are paid to the owner from your account. This is the first money to leave, and it leaves against a signed charter party.
From here the ship costs a known amount per day for a known number of days. One side of the spread is closed before the cargo side is opened.
In Phase 3, cargo is fixed against the ship and freight is paid into the same account the hire went out of.
A cargo that fits the ship, the laycan and the range. The desk fixes it directly with the shipper or through the broker who holds it.
Freight from the shipper is paid into the account the hire went out of. One balance, both sides of the trade, one statement you can read.
What the cargo pays, less what the ship and the voyage cost. That difference is the entire business — and it is earned inside your account, not somewhere else.
In Phase 4, the voyage is run and every cost is settled from the account as it falls due. We are paid to do the work — not out of the upside.
Illustrative proportions of a single voyage account, shown to explain the order of payment — not a projection or a forecast. Real splits are shown on closed accounts.
Freight arrives in the account. From that same balance, every cost of the voyage is settled as it falls due — in the order below.
The largest single line. Paid on the agreed period, against the charter party, for as long as the ship is on hire to the account.
Bunkers, port dues, agency, canal and insurance. Every one of them is a third-party invoice you can see, addressed to the account.
Chartering manager, operations manager, rent. A fixed lump sum, agreed before the fixture — it does not move with the result.
1.25% of gross incoming freight. Brokerage on the cargo we bring — the same commission any competent broker would earn on the same fixture.
No carry. No management fee on your capital. No performance share. The entire trading result of the voyage stays in your account, because it never left it.
In Phase 5, the last freight is collected, the last invoices are paid, and the account closes with the result already in your name.
Port costs, agency, bunkers and the desk are settled as they fall due. You see the position on every statement, not in a quarterly letter.
Final freight is collected and the laytime account is settled. Demurrage, if the ship earned it, is claimed and collected into the same balance.
The ship is redelivered, the last invoice is paid, and what remains is already sitting in your name. Nothing has to be returned to you, because nothing was ever taken.
The usual way into this market is to give someone your money and wait. This is the other way round: you keep the money and give someone the work.
DWTBIT is never the account holder. We hold a mandate to fix and to pay, and you hold the signature above it.
Your account funds one trade with a known start and a known end. No rolling exposure, no next deal you did not agree to.
Your money never sits beside anyone else's. Nothing is cross-collateralised and nothing is netted against another voyage.
The clearest version of this is a closed account you can read line by line — hire in, freight out, costs, commission, and the number that was left. We will walk one through with you.
Seven documents. The reference, the returns and the terms — in the order the questions usually come.
Each document opens in place. Nothing here is an offer — it is the record, laid out so you can check it in an hour.
One hundred terms, in the order a voyage meets them. Plain definitions for the words used across the record.
Thirty isometric symbols, one for each thing a dry bulk desk handles. Every symbol lifts out as SVG.
The entry ticket. What one million buys in tonnage, how many voyages it carries, and what returns at close.
Two million on the desk. Bigger ships, or two accounts running side by side, and what each does to the return.
Three million. Enough working capital to hold a position and choose the cargo instead of taking what is offered.
The structure of the vehicle, where your money legally sits while the voyage runs, the commercial terms, and what you are sent while it trades.
What goes wrong on a voyage, what it costs, and what is left after it does. Read this one first.
Each document opens in place. Print to PDF from the browser if you want a copy to keep.
One hundred terms an investor meets in a dry bulk voyage, in the order a voyage meets them.
The document follows a voyage from the ship itself to the market that prices it. The rail at the top of every section shows where you are.
What is being hired. Size, shape and gear decide which cargoes and which ports are open to the ship.
Who is on the other end of each payment. In our structure the account sits in the middle as disponent owner.
Every cost in a voyage is allocated by one document. Which contract you are in decides who pays for what.
On a dry bulk voyage almost everything coming in is freight. The rest is compensation for time.
Four counterparties take most of it. Hire and bunkers alone are around two thirds of the freight.
The port call is where time is won and lost. Every event on this line is recorded and later argued from.
Time is the second currency. Once laytime is used up, the ship is paid for waiting instead of working.
A voyage is proved on paper. Freight is usually released against one document, and claims live or die on another.
Four layers of cover sit over a voyage. The one that matters to this structure is the charterer's layer.
Rates are published daily by segment and route. What a voyage is worth is not a matter of opinion.
Every section here maps onto a line in a voyage account.
Ask us for a closed voyage account and read this document beside it. The terms stop being vocabulary at that point.
Sections four and five are the ones that decide a result. The rest exist to explain why those two numbers came out as they did.
One object for each thing a dry bulk desk handles. True isometric at thirty degrees, three flat tones per object, amber on the one thing the symbol is about. Built as inline SVG — every symbol on this page can be lifted out and dropped into a document at any size.
Trip time charter. The asset you rent and never own.
The largest single cost. It runs per day, settled in instalments.
The two moments that bracket every hour of exposure.
Fuel bought on the ship at takeover. Cash out on day zero.
The instant terms bind. Before it nothing, after it everything.
Conditions cleared one by one. The last one makes the deal firm.
Agreed terms in writing. It governs until the charter party is issued.
Tonnes fixed. It sets the freight and the deadfreight exposure.
The only substantial money in. Almost all of it is already spoken for.
First disbursement, funded up front, before any income arrives.
Where cargo quantity and condition are measured and argued.
Ton-miles. Distance is the thing actually being sold.
What goes in which hold, in what order, decided before loading.
Displacement measured light and loaded. The difference is the cargo.
Space booked and not filled. It is paid for regardless.
Time allowed for cargo work, free of further payment.
Time overrun. Paid per day, and argued over for months.
The marker that starts the clock. Everything before it is dead time.
The ship stops earning while the voyage keeps costing.
Everything paid before the cargo interest pays. What capital funds.
Claims die on a date. The most expensive thing on a desk to forget.
Days struck out of the count. They are not laytime.
Two stems, priced separately, settled long after they are burned.
Proforma out first. The final account arrives months later.
Taken off the top, on gross freight, before anything else.
Two rates at different heights. The gap is the entire business.
Everything reconciles from both directions, or nothing is true.
The trough sets the requirement, not the size of the voyage.
Written authority to trade. Your signature sits above it.
One cube, one account, nothing else on the pad.
One million of working capital, six dry bulk voyages, twelve months. Freight collected at bill of lading.
Not a margin business — a turnover business. Which is why voyage count, not freight rate, is the lever that moves the return.
DWTBIT · Investment ROI $1M
01 / 03
Committed on day zero. Cash‑positive from bill of lading.
DWTBIT · Investment ROI $1M
02 / 03
Voyage count is the only variable. Margin and hit rate never move.
No second voyage starts until freight on the first is in cleared funds. Break the rule and two open voyages expose 79% of capital with nothing held for a disbursement call.
Basis of preparation. Derived from 67 closed voyage accounts on 30,000–34,000 dwt tonnage. Contribution margin is set at the ledger median of 5.95%, not the range top. Maximum realistic single‑voyage loss is approximately $110,000, or 11% of the fund; a four‑voyage year returns approximately capital. Issued for evaluation, not an offer to sell. Modelled returns are estimates and are not guaranteed. Capital is at risk. Figures are unaudited.
DWTBIT · Investment ROI $1M
03 / 03
Two million of working capital, two voyage slots running side by side over twelve months.
Same tonnage, same cost stack, same 4.5% contribution. Two million buys a second slot outright, and twelve voyages cut the spread of outcomes by nearly a third.
DWTBIT · Investment ROI $2M
01 / 03
Two slots, staggered thirty days. They never trough together.
DWTBIT · Investment ROI $2M
02 / 03
Slot count is the only variable. Margin and hit rate never move.
Slots are fixed thirty days apart so their troughs never coincide — the fund works at 28% of capital. It is sized for the worst case anyway: both slots peaking in the same week would still be 55%, the ratio a single slot carried on one million.
Basis of preparation. Derived from 67 closed voyage accounts on 30,000–34,000 dwt tonnage. Contribution margin is set at the ledger median of 5.95% and is identical to the one million case — the only change is voyage count. Fund operating costs rise from $28,000 to $38,000 rather than doubling, which is the whole of the 0.9 point gain. Maximum realistic single‑voyage loss is approximately $110,000, or 5.5% of the fund. Issued for evaluation, not an offer to sell. Modelled returns are estimates and are not guaranteed. Capital is at risk. Figures are unaudited.
DWTBIT · Investment ROI $2M
03 / 03
Three million of working capital, three voyage slots, and enough headroom to decline a cargo.
Three slots run staggered and the fund still holds $2.2m at its deepest point. That buffer is what lets a weak fixture be refused rather than taken — the one lever that lifts margin rather than count.
DWTBIT · Investment ROI $3M
01 / 03
Three slots, staggered twenty days. The deepest point comes early.
DWTBIT · Investment ROI $3M
02 / 03
Slot count is the only variable. Margin and hit rate never move.
Slots open twenty days apart. The deepest point is 26% of capital and falls in the ramp‑up, when the second slot opens while the first is still at trough. It settles shallower from month three.
Basis of preparation. Derived from 67 closed voyage accounts on 30,000–34,000 dwt tonnage. Contribution margin is set at the ledger median of 5.95% and is identical to the one and two million cases — the base case changes only voyage count. Fund operating costs rise to $46,000 rather than tripling. The selectivity lever is modelled, not observed, and is not included in the 17.3% base. Maximum realistic single‑voyage loss is approximately $110,000, or 3.7% of the fund. Issued for evaluation, not an offer to sell. Modelled returns are estimates and are not guaranteed. Capital is at risk. Figures are unaudited.
DWTBIT · Investment ROI $3M
03 / 03
Proposed terms between the investor, the vehicle and DWTBIT.
Two agreements rather than one, because DWTBIT is paid by the vehicle — collapsing them would make DWTBIT both manager and counterparty in the same instrument.
DWTBIT · Legal and investor relations
01 / 03
What is agreed, and what DWTBIT may not do with the money.
DWTBIT · Legal and investor relations
02 / 03
What has to be true before any money moves.
No capital is called and no fixture concluded until every one of these is satisfied in writing.
Status of this document. A commercial proposal, not legal advice and not a binding offer. DWTBIT is not authorised to provide investment services. The structure is subject to regulatory opinion in the vehicle’s and the investor’s jurisdictions: taking capital to trade on another’s behalf is a regulated activity in most of them, and one investor per vehicle is proposed because pooling passive investors would likely constitute a collective investment scheme requiring authorisation. Each party should take independent legal and tax advice. Terms are indicative and subject to contract.
DWTBIT · Legal and investor relations
03 / 03
Every way capital can be lost, ranked by what it costs.
Freight and hire are fixed at fixture, so the spread is locked the day the cargo is booked. What is not fixed is everything after: bunkers to stem, port costs to be invoiced, days to be lost, freight to be collected.
Two of these in the same voyage produce a loss. The return model assumes that happens about once in every four and a half voyages — that is what a 77.6% hit rate means.
DWTBIT · Risks
01 / 03
Ranked by expected cost, not by how alarming it sounds.
Everything above costs a voyage. The 95% freight payment costs the capital — a single default is $815,000, over eighty per cent of a one million fund. Freight therefore falls due at bill of lading plus three banking days, before discharge, so the exposure runs for days rather than the length of the voyage. Cargo is never released against a letter of indemnity until freight is in cleared funds, whatever the commercial pressure. That rule is the most important line here.
DWTBIT · Risks
02 / 03
And the conditions under which trading stops.
Trading halts and the investor is notified within 24 hours. No new fixture until they agree to resume.
Basis and limitations. This register describes risks known at the date of issue and is not exhaustive; unanticipated events may cause loss beyond anything described here. Likelihoods and costs are estimates drawn from 67 closed voyage accounts and from the operator’s judgment, not from actuarial data. Capital placed in voyage operations is at risk and may not be returned in full. Nothing in this document is an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any security or interest. Figures are unaudited.
DWTBIT · Risks
03 / 03
Six reasons, in no particular order, that private capital comes to us rather than to a ship.
DWTBIT takes tonnage and fixes cargo. No steel, no mortgage, no view on what a vessel is worth in five years.
DWTBIT puts every trade in its own vehicle, with a defined duration and capital returned when the account closes.
DWTBIT publishes the market call before the voyage. Anyone can assemble a record once the results are known.
DWTBIT shows closed accounts, not models. Real fixtures, real counterparties, wins and losses alike.
DWTBIT works where the cargo originates, in the counterparty's own language. Most of this market is still done by voice.
DWTBIT runs no fund and no cross-collateralisation. You are exposed to the trade you agreed to and to nothing else.
Shipping money backs people, not decks. Every fixture on the record was negotiated by hand, and every account on it was closed by the same hand.
The background is commercial rather than financial: dry bulk chartering and voyage operations, laytime and demurrage, sale and purchase, and market entry work across four languages. The through-line is the same in each — standing between two principals and being trusted by both.
Full biographies, track record and references for the people who would manage your capital are shared on request.
Dry bulk does not keep office hours. These three cities set the rhythm of the handysize trade, and between them there is always one that is open.
Black Sea and east Mediterranean. Grain, steel and scrap, a dense broker community, and a market still done largely by voice.
The largest bunkering port in the world and the chartering centre for Asia. Where fuel is priced and where most eastbound business is fixed.
Japanese owners hold a large share of the handysize and supramax fleet. Tonnage supply, the yards, and the finance standing behind them.