When I woke up today, for some reason I had a thought about the Vikings placing a body into a ship, setting it ablaze, and sending it to sea.
(Trust me, you do NOT want to know how my brain works.)
Anyway, I got to thinking. Let’s say someone is an avid sailor, owns a boat, hell they even love it so much that’s the primary residence. Then they die and don’t want to be buried on land.
Here’s the question. Is it legal in any way to put the body on the boat, towing it to sea and having a big ole bonfire? I understand, at least in the US, it’s probably illegal to do in the 12 miles of maritime claim. (I think it’s 12 miles) But that could be wrong. If not, what would the rules of international waters be? And are there any countries that would allow this as long as it was well-known to officials instead of the mob finding new ways of disposing bodies?
We’ve discussed this before, and I don’t think any firm conclusions were reached.
The gist of the problem is this: once you’re 12 miles out (I thought it was 11) you’re in international waters. Just because you’re in international waters doesn’t give you a free hand to do as you please; ergo, you might be violating some international law by doing this. As to what international law… ya go me. I don’t think anyone on the SDMB knows, either, because IIRC previous threads on this subject never yielded conclusive information.
Funeral-biz laws vary by state, but mainly you’d be in violation of laws about polluting the water. When my dad’s ashes were poured into Tampa Bay, it probably violated environmental laws. No one was prosecuted.
You may be violating the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes & Other Matter (London, Mexico City, Moscow and Washington), 1972.
You might also want to check to see if Iceland or another Scandinavian country would allow this is their waters owing to tradtion. The Icelanders reroute highways for the “hidden folk,” so it may be an option…?
I can’t imagine why. Could there really ever be so much human ash being dumped into the ocean that it could cause any appreciable impact on the environment?
I was thinking of doing the same thing, only in a small plane and with explosives.
I’ll match you twisted mind for twisted mind any day, bub.
Scattering ashes and scuttling boats are both legal, but doing either for fraud is not. Don’t remember where I read this, but I did. I don’t know about doing both at the same time, though.
Peace,
mangeorge
Because our laws apply, regardless of whether it would “cause any appreciable impact on the environment”.
It’s pretty unlikely that I would cause any appreciable impact on the environment by just throwing an old mercury thermometer in the trash, but it’s still against the law. Because if everybody did that, it would cause an appreciable impact.
I don’t see how the Huldefolk enter into this. Unless, the boat had a lot of iron in it. Huldefolk would, however, be a concern when interring the body in a burial mound. The entrances to the realm of the Huldefolk are often found in such places.
Eh, I doubt Iceland would, since more standard Christian funerary practices are generally used, in my experience. Then again, there are the revivalists of the Norse religion. But still, Vikings also had regular burial, sometimes with marker stones arranged to look like the outline of a ship.
I think the burning ship is still the best way to go, though.
How much of a “tradition” the flaming-ship Viking funeral ever was is, to put it mildly, in dispute. Historians know of one written account of such a funeral, which was written by an outsider and contains a number of known inaccuracies. On the other hand, a large body of physical evidence exists to indicate that the Vikings often buried their dead, including finds of the graves of obviously wealthy and important people buried in their ships. (The Viking ships preserved in the museum in Oslo were grave goods; those in the museum in Roskilde in Denmark were not, they are believed to have been purposely sunk to restrict access to a harbor.)
I don’t think claiming “tradition” in this matter would impress the authorities of any Scandinavian country terribly much. On the other hand, rerouting a road to avoid angering trolls or hulder has some practical value; they can be mean little b******* when they want to be
I think the most fun with the Trebuchet would be the things people would want their carcasses flung at. I would suspect the following locales to be prominent:
The White House
IRS Headquarters
Detroit Lions Home Field during a game. (Which might help their offense.)
Their ex’s house.