Can you run this?
A freight-cycle simulation

Can You Run a Shipping Company?

You run a small dry-bulk shipping company: two ships carrying grain, ore and coal, and a $24.5M bank loan against them. Freight rates move in booms and busts. In a boom they can double; in a bust they can fall below what it costs to run a ship. Ships take months to buy, build or charter, so every decision lands in a market you can’t see yet. Survive the bust, and own the recovery.

  • 12 monthsfour quarterly decision pages
  • +12 moreoptional, to month 24
  • 1 full cyclea boom, a bust, and whatever you built in between

About this simulation

Difficulty
Advanced High risk. Debt, leverage, crises and big systems. Many runs end early.
Length
12 months + 12 more, about 10 minutes for the first part
Category
Big systems
You decide
Freight rates, ships, fuel, contracts

How it plays

  1. Months 1–3 · Setting a course — Set up your fleet
  2. Months 4–6 · The upswing — Ride the upswing
  3. Months 7–9 · Past the peak? — Decide what to lock in
  4. Months 10–12 · The turn — Brace for the bust

After the debrief, “Keep going — to month 24” continues the run with calendar events, new challenges and opportunities that build on what you chose earlier. Every decision page has a live preview that shows what your picks do to the numbers before you lock them in.

What you get at the end

A debrief with your outcome, charts of where the money went, your biggest mistake and roughly what it cost, and a full report you can copy or save as a PDF. Everything runs in your browser: no sign-up, nothing to install.

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