Ghost ship..

[boatman61]

Well thats one less hazard out there..
Abandoned in Sept 2018 and been drifting ever since till Storm Dennis laid her on the rocks..
https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampp...a-storm-dennis

[redhead]

Amazing that it drifted so long and so far and yet it still "seems intact" according to the article.

I would not want to come across a ship like that drifting and unmanned. I'd have nightmares for weeks.

[boatman61]

I am curious as to whether it was being monitored and were nav lights and ais left on and operating.
Is there a Marine Traffic alert system in place for oceans.. or is that Coastal waters only.

[Richard5]

Originally Posted by redhead

I would not want to come across a ship like that drifting and unmanned. I'd have nightmares for weeks.

Now you have something else to, uh, dream about. The Space X booster is only 70 meters long, 3.66 meters diameter.

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot...-starlink.html

[Snore]

Can someone help me understand this.

I will wager heavy she has no insurance. Double down, that there is no funding to pay for her removal.

So given all that, why didn't someone use her for target practice?

Sink her mid-Atlantic and the oil, etc will dissipate before they become a major issue. If she breaks up on the rocks, those same petro-pollutants will impact birds and other wild life.

Can one of the "smart guys in the room" explain why my idea is bad?

[Seymore]

Originally Posted by boatman61

I am curious as to whether it was being monitored and were nav lights and ais left on and operating.
Is there a Marine Traffic alert system in place for oceans.. or is that Coastal waters only.

I'm sure it was not monitored, because it was a huge surprise when it turned up on the Irish coast. Similarly, the nav and AIS would be off.

That being said, there are web sites that show the AIS positions of ships worldwide so owners can track them, and if a ship has its AIS turned off, a satellite sees it and shows it as an unidentified vessel--so just about every vessel on all of the oceans in the world is on there. The problem there is, how do you distinguish a derelict from the hordes of legitimate vessels, many of them with their AIS turned off!? (I'm on one of my second-rate computers and can't bring up one of those websites here in its Bookmarks listing.)

[redneckrob]

Originally Posted by Snore

Can someone help me understand this.

I will wager heavy she has no insurance. Double down, that there is no funding to pay for her removal.

So given all that, why didn't someone use her for target practice?

Sink her mid-Atlantic and the oil, etc will dissipate before they become a major issue. If she breaks up on the rocks, those same petro-pollutants will impact birds and other wild life.

Can one of the "smart guys in the room" explain why my idea is bad?

Sure.

1. Knowingly dumping oil on the high seas (or any other seas for that matter) is a violation of a number of treaties that make up international law. The USCG, who rescued the crew of this vessel, is responsible for enforcing those laws for U.S. flagged vessels and at a minimum is statutorily prohibited from breaking those laws themselves except in cases like a half-submerged migrant boat with no known owner that is an immediate hazard to navigation.
2. Sinking someone's boat without their permission without a good reason also generally goes against a number of international treaties going back hundreds of years. Abandoning ship does not grant permission to sink the ship at will. This boat was afloat and appeared destined to remain afloat at the time of the rescue, and if you read the articles there appeared to be a salvage plan at the time of the rescue in place by the owners. Why in the world would the CG give the owners a free claim against the government by destroying their property in the face of that?

Clearly the company absconded their responsibility and the flag state didn't hold them accountable. That's unfortunate, and easy to predict in hindsight, which is always 20/20. But if the CG had taken the action you advocate, they would have been in an indefensible position on two counts since you're effectively requiring them to claim they could have predicted this future with 100% certainty. Like many things you learn from working in the government, nothing is black and white and it's much easier to throw stones from your easy chair then to be on-scene in the a situation like that and liable for all the possible outcomes of your decision without that 20/20 hindsight you're taking advantage of now.

[Snore]

Originally Posted by redneckrob

Sure.



and it's much easier to throw stones from your easy chair then to be on-scene in the a situation like that and liable for all the possible outcomes of your decision without that 20/20 hindsight you're taking advantage of now.

Ya see these posts tell a lot about a person.

My post specifically asks for someone to explain why. I cast no aspersions upon anyone. I simply asked for help understanding the inaction.

Your response has several defects in it- but I have no desire to continue the dialog.

It is unfortunate that you used this as grounds for a personal attack.

[gonesail]

Originally Posted by redneckrob

Knowingly dumping oil on the high seas (or any other seas for that matter) is a violation of a number of treaties that make up international law.

but it's ok to let it pile up on the Irish coast and let them worry about it

[LakeSuperior]

Originally Posted by Snore

Can someone help me understand this.

I will wager heavy she has no insurance. Double down, that there is no funding to pay for her removal.

So given all that, why didn't someone use her for target practice?

Sink her mid-Atlantic and the oil, etc will dissipate before they become a major issue. If she breaks up on the rocks, those same petro-pollutants will impact birds and other wild life.

Can one of the "smart guys in the room" explain why my idea is bad?

Part of your last sentence, the smart guys in the room part, is considered derogatory in many instances. If taken as derogatory you tend to get a pointy response. After rereading I don't think you meant it to be derogatory.

[Seymore]

Originally Posted by Seymore

That being said, there are web sites that show the AIS positions of ships worldwide so owners can track them, and if a ship has its AIS turned off, a satellite sees it and shows it as an unidentified vessel--so just about every vessel on all of the oceans in the world is on there. The problem there is, how do you distinguish a derelict from the hordes of legitimate vessels, many of them with their AIS turned off!? (I'm on one of my second-rate computers and can't bring up one of those websites here in its Bookmarks listing.)

Here's a website that shows the AIS positions of ships worldwide....

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais...ry:36.3/zoom:5

...and click on a ship.

[redneckrob]

Originally Posted by gonesail

but it's ok to let it pile up on the Irish coast and let them worry about it

Again, the contemporaneous articles written when the event happened indicated that the responsible party had a salvage plan. Therefore you would have to have 20/20 foresight to be sure they would fail to execute on that plan, which obviously none of us have. Again, if you were on-scene out there in the middle of the ocean would you purposely sink someone else's ship against their wishes when they had a credible salvage plan and be prepared to personally take on the consequences for that?

[redneckrob]

Originally Posted by Snore

Ya see these posts tell a lot about a person.

My post specifically asks for someone to explain why. I cast no aspersions upon anyone. I simply asked for help understanding the inaction.

Your response has several defects in it- but I have no desire to continue the dialog.

It is unfortunate that you used this as grounds for a personal attack.

The entire tone of your post indicated that you thought there were obvious solutions that weren't taken by those who were on-scene. It is absolutely appropriate to point out the difference between being on scene and bearing responsibility for the decisions made versus questioning those decisions from the comfort of your armchair with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, which you were absolutely doing in your post. That is in no way a "personal attack" and quite frankly accusing someone of making "personal attacks" when they aren't isn't an acceptable response to someone who took the time to provide a very specific, on topic answer backed up by 20+ years of experience as a Coast Guard officer dealing with exactly these types of situations. Something like "thank you for your insights" is generally the polite, well meaning response to a well meaning answer to your question. If there are specific issues with that response, especially ones that draws on your experience in these types of situations, I'd love to hear it.

[Snore]

Originally Posted by redneckrob

The entire tone of your post indicated that you thought there were obvious solutions that weren't taken by those who were on-scene. It is absolutely appropriate to point out the difference between being on scene and bearing responsibility for the decisions made versus questioning those decisions from the comfort of your armchair with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, which you were absolutely doing in your post. That is in no way a "personal attack" and quite frankly accusing someone of making "personal attacks" when they aren't isn't an acceptable response to someone who took the time to provide a very specific, on topic answer backed up by 20+ years of experience as a Coast Guard officer dealing with exactly these types of situations. Something like "thank you for your insights" is generally the polite, well meaning response to a well meaning answer to your question. If there are specific issues with that response, especially ones that draws on your experience in these types of situations, I'd love to hear it.

My background- 40+ years operating in the highly regulated utility environment. I am very well versed in the various pollution regulations and able to do risk assessment and risk management. I am now a 100 Ton Master who does yacht deliveries. The idea of an unlit drifting ship is a concern when in blue water, especially since I do many owner-asssited jobs.

That said, the issue with ghost ships, it is not if- but when they crash into an island. This is simply the latest example.

So now the question becomes what is the best way to manage the environmental impact of this vessel sinking at sea vs. going aground? Imagine the environmental impact of this vessel going aground on the shallow banks south of the Turks and Caicos. That would be an environmental disaster and impact many marine mammals.

My thoughts?

“In Snore’s a perfect world”, a decontamination team boards the ship, off loads the fuel, perhaps the engine lubrication oil and she is sunk in blue water. Will that be a 100% clean sinking? No. But that would be a much lower impact than letting her run aground in an environmentally sensitive area.

Now- cue the legal team.

How does one obtain the right to sink the vessel? Sinking a private vessel is somewhere between illegal and an act of war. As I understand maritime law, an abandoned vessel is salvage. Would not someone boarding the abandoned vessel become the owner? If the owner wishes to exert their ownership rights, then it should be towed to the port of his choice. In urban LEO parlance, “move it or lose it”.

Who will pay for this? Not sure. Perhaps a shared pool that anyone flagging a vessel must contribute to. Flag your 1000 meter cruise ship? Contribute big. Flag you 33’ Tartan? Contribute. Who will run it? Who will hold the cash? Good questions. Can’t answer them.

To say “nothing can be done” is IMHO irresponsible. There is always a logical solution to a problem. It just takes a desire to deal with the pain.

Respectfully submitted for your review.

[redneckrob]

Originally Posted by Snore

My background- 40+ years operating in the highly regulated utility environment. I am very well versed in the various pollution regulations and able to do risk assessment and risk management. I am now a 100 Ton Master who does yacht deliveries. The idea of an unlit drifting ship is a concern when in blue water, especially since I do many owner-asssited jobs.

That said, the issue with ghost ships, it is not if- but when they crash into an island. This is simply the latest example.

So now the question becomes what is the best way to manage the environmental impact of this vessel sinking at sea vs. going aground? Imagine the environmental impact of this vessel going aground on the shallow banks south of the Turks and Caicos. That would be an environmental disaster and impact many marine mammals.

My thoughts?

“In Snore’s a perfect world”, a decontamination team boards the ship, off loads the fuel, perhaps the engine lubrication oil and she is sunk in blue water. Will that be a 100% clean sinking? No. But that would be a much lower impact than letting her run aground in an environmentally sensitive area.

Now- cue the legal team.

How does one obtain the right to sink the vessel? Sinking a private vessel is somewhere between illegal and an act of war. As I understand maritime law, an abandoned vessel is salvage. Would not someone boarding the abandoned vessel become the owner? If the owner wishes to exert their ownership rights, then it should be towed to the port of his choice. In urban LEO parlance, “move it or lose it”.

Who will pay for this? Not sure. Perhaps a shared pool that anyone flagging a vessel must contribute to. Flag your 1000 meter cruise ship? Contribute big. Flag you 33’ Tartan? Contribute. Who will run it? Who will hold the cash? Good questions. Can’t answer them.

To say “nothing can be done” is IMHO irresponsible. There is always a logical solution to a problem. It just takes a desire to deal with the pain.

Respectfully submitted for your review.

Salvage law only entitles the salvor to a payment equal to a percentage of the vessels value, not ownership. So that route doesn't really work. The offload of hazmat is definitely the way to go, and ideally we'd have an international fund that works like the U.S. national pollution fund. That is a fund that every polluter pays into, and the CG is statutorily allows to take action on potential or actual pollution incidents if the responsible party isn't willing or able to respond.
The problem with that model here is that we're dealing with a foreign flagged vessel in international waters. So what really should have happened is that the U.S. diplomatic machine should have shamed the flag nation into ensuring that the ship was salvaged (which probably would be cheaper than offloading the hazmat at sea anyway). Or if we were being really creative, requested a statement of no objection to allow seizure of the ship pending a salvage bond, although those are only generally used in law enforcement and the flag nation would likely deny it. Nonetheless it would help to go through that process if you intended to go the name and shame route. Bottom line is that no matter how you look at this situation there has to be a DOS diplomatic solution.
It's not that nothing can be done, it's that sinking the vessel without the owner's or at least flag country's consent couldn't be realistically done in this case. If we're thinking realistic solutions that could actually get implimented without years of diplomatic work? I think developing a portable, self powered "derelict vessel" AIS or portable satellite positioning kit that went out with every cutter as well as a protocol for one of the command centers to monitor the track of any deployed kit would be something an ambitious O-5 or O-6 may be able to make happen. At least then in your Turks and Caicos example we'd know far enough in advance to either warn them or, because we work very closely with them already, assist them in stopping a potential environmental issue before the ship actually runs around. I will put a bug in the ear of a few people I know. Thinking up this kind of thing can be good for a career and you and I are happy to let someone else take credit for it as long as it gets done. Any ideas on making that better are welcome before I start planting the idea?