The annual Marine Money Ship Finance Forum had been billed as “Ready for Liftoff.”

Perhaps that’s what inspired Robert Bugbee and Morten Arntzen to effectively light the fuse in a verbal fistfight on an afternoon panel of the conference in Manhattan.

Follow earlier presentations about topics like environmental social and corporate governance (ESG) and market disruption that were high-minded but a bit sleepy, Arntzen and Bugbee got the party started with an old-fashioned war of words.