Business & Finance Abandoned Ships and Abandoned Crews

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
So apparently this is a thing... Ships become abandoned by owners who cannot pay for the ships or their crews salary thus creating situations like in the article.

Sailors will remain aboard ships not only so they won't lose out on months or years of lost wages, but also due to vagaries of port laws or not wanting to get blacklisted for future maritime jobs.

Some sailors remain aboard vessels for years until they can get paid, waiting for often long legal battles to play out so the ship can be scrapped for money to settle unpaid salary debts and the like.

In one case a supertanker with over a million barrels of oil is decaying off of the coast if war torn Yemen also abandoned by its owner.

There's an estimated thousand seafarers who are basically homeless living on abandoned ships around the world and supported by passing ships, charities or friends and family as they await rescue from the limbo they find themselves in. The true number of abandoned sailors is likely much higher however.

 

Cherico

Well-known member
I admit, the idea of re-living the Golden age of Piracy/Privateering is an appealing one...

When piracy returns the countries with navy's able to interact with the world trade freely.

The list of countries that can do so are the united states, japan, the uk, and France.
 

PsihoKekec

Swashbuckling Accountant
Depending on the local laws the continuation of crew is needed until the ship is sold to a new owner (usually for scrap) in order for crew wages to be paid, in some countries full crew or just token caretaker in others. Since these cases usually take years to get through courts, the crews are hit bad. Also it's not a new problem either, dodgy ship owners (and there are lot of them, thanks to flags of convenience) had been getting sailors stranded all over the world for a long time, but it's getting more common now.
 

Simonbob

Well-known member
Depending on the local laws the continuation of crew is needed until the ship is sold to a new owner (usually for scrap) in order for crew wages to be paid, in some countries full crew or just token caretaker in others. Since these cases usually take years to get through courts, the crews are hit bad. Also it's not a new problem either, dodgy ship owners (and there are lot of them, thanks to flags of convenience) had been getting sailors stranded all over the world for a long time, but it's getting more common now.
Nobody's seen anything like the scale right now.

There's a reason why prices are soaring, why it's near impossible to get some things, and it's going to get worse. Much worse.

I should find that Stefan Molyneux video again, where he interviews a Captain of a cargo ship. Interesting stuff.


Seriously. Re-building international shipping is going to take decades. Just building a new cargo ship takes months.
 

PsihoKekec

Swashbuckling Accountant
The shipping itself is not much the problem for now, it's the port capabilities and distribution from them that are most hamstrung, at least when it comes to long distance shipping.
During the crisis it was the lower rungs of the shipping business that were hit the hardest, however there will be some interesting consequences in the years to come. Basically in the past the life span of a cargo ship was that as new vessel it sailed for a reputable owner, but as it got owner and maintenance more difficult it got sold down to increasingly dodgy owners, servicing less profitable destination. However as the size of oceanic cargo ships kept going up, the ability of local shippers to use them went down. Thus during this crisis many cargo ships that could otherwise ply their trade for years or decades have been sent to breakers or simply left to rust at the anchorages (which will delay the scrapping a bit).
The demand is now catching up with the remaining glut in shipping capabilities (the size of the glut varies on how many of rusting ships can be reactivated), but once it overtakes it? There are considerable doubts if the diminished shipbuilding will be able to keep up with both the rising demand and continuous scrapping of worn out hulls.

And then there is a matter of sufficient number of qualified seamen, something that both big and small players in the business take for granted.
 

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