The Baltic Exchange has launched its Christmas charity initiative by lining up a festive quiz to find shipping's biggest brain.

The Baltic Christmas Charity Quiz will go live online on 17 December at 1300 GMT for 30 minutes.

The London exchange is using the online quizzing website Kahoot. The quiz will also be streamed live on Virgin Giving.

The goal is to raise £3,000 ($4,000) during the half-hour. Anyone can join by donating a minimum of £10 here.

Contestants will have 10 seconds to answer each question, with more points gained the faster you respond.

The Singapore office is also publicising the quiz in Asia.

Vital work supported

All donations will go to The Mission to Seafarers.

The Baltic said there are over 1.5m people working at sea, many of whom have been adversely affected by Covid-19, spending extended months at sea without shore leave.

"Following the huge problems for seafarers this year, we wanted to do something to raise money and draw more attention," said Crispin Eccleston, the exchange's head of sales and business development for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

He told TradeWinds: "It's open to anyone and everyone, we want to make this as industry-wide as possible."

Larger corporate donations for a team of players are also welcome.

Prizes are available for the top five quizzers.

The winner (and their company) will have the honour of being publicly crowned Shipping's Brightest Broker 2020.

Party time

The quiz champ will also receive a case of 2015 Rathfinny Blanc de Noirs sparkling English wine and two invitations to the 2021 Baltic chairman's cocktail party.

The runner-up will bag a year's streaming subscription to a video/music platform of their choice and two invitations to the same glamorous knees-up.

The third prize is a fourth-generation Echo Dot smart speaker. The bronze medallist also gets to attend the party with one guest.

So what are you waiting for?