“There is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But being paid ,—what will compare with it?”
An looking that up to quote, I found this passage, which I had forgotten:
“And as for going as cook,—though I confess there is considerable glory in that, a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board—yet, somehow, I never fancied broiling fowls;—though once broiled, judiciously buttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who will speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled fowl than I will."
The Americans have certainly held assets of various sorts, including portable goods like ships and aircraft for ransom before. And an honest assessment would show not always for the most principled of reasons.
Nevertheless, this seem pretty brazen even by the piratical standards of international maritime practice. @Princhester: does this seem par for the course or pretty outré to your highly experienced jaundiced eye?
The conduct itself is not outstandingly brazen but the numbers are large.
The usual game is that claimants try to hold up the ship to blackmail the owners into an immediate inflated cash settlement. The shipowner will try to negotiate (or get a court order for) the release of the ship in return for provision of some form of financial security, with the amount to be paid to be decided by a court later.
This is from PastTense’s cite earlier
Lt. Gen. Osama Rabei, head of the Suez Canal Authority on Thursday warned the ship and its cargo will not be allowed leave Egypt if the issue of damages goes to court.
…which is an admission of blackmail - he’s pretty clearly warning the shipowner that if they won’t succumb to blackmail and instead insist on only paying what a court decides is lawfully owed, they will hold the ship up indefinitely. Whether the Canal Authority can actually do that probably comes down to whether the rule of law applies effectively in Egypt.
Thankfully most of my experience is in countries with at least some rule of law. I don’t have any experience of where Egypt stands in that respect.
The insurers assisting the shipowners with the situation are not to be underestimated. They have financial resources equivalent to that of a small country, are extremely experienced at this sort of thing, and are prepared to play a long game. They are also sufficiently enmeshed with the industry that they take a long-term view. They know that if they are “soft” this time, it will only be worse next time.
Does Egypt have any risk of overplaying its hand here? If they’re sufficiently piratical, might shipping companies just say fuck Suez, we’ll all sail around the Cape and Egypt loses all its toll income? Or are the time/fuel savings so large that that’s just not going to happen?
Egypt are apparently not above holding ships and sailors hostage indefinitely. Here’s the story of a stranded seaman that has been living on an abandoned cargo vessel off the Egyptian coast for four years now:
Which is nothing compared to the 15 ships trapped in the Suez canal for eight years:
While they might theoretically overplay their hand, I very much doubt they will. Even if the ultimate outcome paints Egypt in a piratical light, other ship operators will figure the odds of going aground and getting the same treatment are very low while the immediate reward of going through the canal is too tempting to ignore.
And I don’t think Egypt will overplay its hand. It will huff and puff and pound its chest but in the end it will accept an inflated but not overly inflated outcome.
This is infuriating. He has to swim back and forth to get food and fresh water, and with his deteriorating health he has been close to drowning several times. From the photo in the article it looks as though the ship is at least a kilometer ashore. The least his company can do for him is provide a small inflatable dinghy so he can get safely to land and back.
Anyway, shouldn’t it have been the captains task to babysit the ship while the authorities twiddle their thumbs.
The BBC clip is dated 6. april 2021. At 2.48 it says that BBC has been in contact with the owners and later name them as Tylos Shipping and Marine Services. The owners claim they have tried to help him …
I hadn’t noticed that it was to be auctioned off. Weird that it hasn’t happened during the four years. Meanwhile it has run aground. That can hardly have increased buyers interest.
Googling the company name yields no company website, but several articles about other ships abandoned in a similar way.
One thing no one has mentioned in connection with this latest development (Egypt basically holding the ship hostage) is the tremendous amount of goods on the ship. Already delayed by the grounding, it’s now being delayed even longer by these new shenanigans. This is bound to create random shortages all over the place. 20,000+ containers is a lot of stuff, and represents a lot of tied-up inventory!
20,000 containers represents a lot of stuff to you or I. But is a tiny drop in the vast sea of containers going every which way every day. Any thought that this will create any visible shortage of ordinary goods is way out of proportion.
It’s certainly there are specific shipments of some specific rare goods trapped on that ship. Sucks if you’re the guy waiting for one of those. Like some custom built part for a rocket ship or something that has a 6 month lead time to make another.
But if it’s just more part #123456s from the Quang Zhou Gizmo Factory #3, they’ve already made another 25 containers worth of that item each day since the ship left Shanghai with that one unlucky container on board.
