Thieves Who Steal Sunken Warships, Right Down to the Bolts • Hacker News Board

Re: Thieves Who Steal Sunken Warships, Right Down to the Bolts

#21

Post by Nullabillity » Sat, May 06, 2017, 1:48 PM UTC

rogerwilco1 wrote: post #6

devoply wrote: post #3

I am personally with the salvagers. They are making good use of an economic resource for themselves and for others. They are also cleaning the ocean of old debris, not getting lost in some misplaced sense of sentimentality. If the home countries of these vessels want them so bad they should simply salvage them themselves. It's stupid that we have laws that protect stuff that sunk over a few decades ago. If you can't…

Most of the ships are final resting places for the crew that went down with them. You don't disturb them for personal economic gain. Just like you don't steal a 100 year old stone from a graveyard.

They're dead, good luck annoying them.

Re: Thieves Who Steal Sunken Warships, Right Down to the Bolts

#22

Post by pavement » Sat, May 06, 2017, 2:00 PM UTC

roel_v wrote: post #11

CPLX wrote: post #4

It's a really interesting story, but I don't get the general slant. Doesn't it make more sense for us to recover high quality steeel that's sitting there unused instead of carving up yet another mountain and burning tons of coal to make it from scratch?

Sunken warships are graves (graveyards maybe, not a sailor myself). So stealing them is grave robbing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burial_at_sea

I think it's generally well-understood that when your remains rest in the ocean, you become fish food. The vast expanse of water itself is your tomb, not some little square on the floor.

Argue over the vehicle wreckage, but don't misplace your sentimentality.

Re: Thieves Who Steal Sunken Warships, Right Down to the Bolts

#23

Post by cheath » Sat, May 06, 2017, 2:03 PM UTC

I find it fascinating that there is enough human introduced radioactivity in our atmosphere that it's measurable in steel and even problematic for the creation of some medical devices et al.

Re: Thieves Who Steal Sunken Warships, Right Down to the Bolts

#24

Post by Mvandenbergh » Sat, May 06, 2017, 2:10 PM UTC

sfifs wrote: post #18

roel_v wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sunken warships are graves (graveyards maybe, not a sailor myself). So stealing them is grave robbing.

So when westerners dig up mummies in Egypt, cart them to the Louvre and sell tickets for the privilege of visitation, that's historical research but when folks in poorer countries dig up metal from abandoned ships to sell, it's grave-robbing. Our ability for self-deception is breath taking.

Do many of those mummies have living children? There are people alive today who survived the sinking of those ships.

Most Egyptian mummies come from a culture that was staggeringly remote and ancient - to Cleopatra, to later Byzantine culture, and certainly to Egypt after the Arab conquest... which was 1400 years ago!

Bronze age remains from Europe are not treated differently, you know. Those are also in museums around the world.

Re: Thieves Who Steal Sunken Warships, Right Down to the Bolts

#25

Post by Mvandenbergh » Sat, May 06, 2017, 2:11 PM UTC

"The Danish government had tasked them to assess the condition of two particular Dutch vessels, the Hr. Ms. Java and Hr. Ms. De Ruyter"

That's very generous of the Danish government!

Re: Thieves Who Steal Sunken Warships, Right Down to the Bolts

#26

Post by glubGlub » Sat, May 06, 2017, 2:18 PM UTC

rogerwilco1 wrote: post #6

devoply wrote: post #3

I am personally with the salvagers. They are making good use of an economic resource for themselves and for others. They are also cleaning the ocean of old debris, not getting lost in some misplaced sense of sentimentality. If the home countries of these vessels want them so bad they should simply salvage them themselves. It's stupid that we have laws that protect stuff that sunk over a few decades ago. If you can't…

Most of the ships are final resting places for the crew that went down with them. You don't disturb them for personal economic gain. Just like you don't steal a 100 year old stone from a graveyard.

The ocean is quite a different place. Wrecks are often debris fields, and not simple plots of land.

It's not appropriate to wax indignant about remains that may have all but disintegrated into unrecognizable mud. These are not organized places, like the parks on land with paths that people walk.

Consider the wreckage of the Titanic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wreck_of_the_RMS_Titanic

No one can simply swin to the bottom of the ocean to pay their respects.

Re: Thieves Who Steal Sunken Warships, Right Down to the Bolts

#27

Post by Matt3o12_ » Sat, May 06, 2017, 2:22 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #14

devoply wrote: post #3

I am personally with the salvagers. They are making good use of an economic resource for themselves and for others. They are also cleaning the ocean of old debris, not getting lost in some misplaced sense of sentimentality. If the home countries of these vessels want them so bad they should simply salvage them themselves. It's stupid that we have laws that protect stuff that sunk over a few decades ago. If you can't…

What's the difference between scrap metal and historically significant sites? The Neolithic stone circle at Avebury, Wiltshire, had several stones removed by local villages who wanted stone to build cottages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avebury In the centre of this screen, just south of Tunnel House In, you can see a square outline in a field. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Coates,+Cirencester/@51.... That's…

Historical sites are normally somewhat maintained and preserved. They are also quite often seen by tourists who are interested in those sites.

Most sunken ships, they just sit there and nobody wants to take responsibility and maintain them so that no oil and fuel gets into the ocean. Furthermore, there is little to see. Sure there is some historical information on them but we should save those otherwise the ocean destroys them (surely but slowly).

If those sunken ships were properly maintained, I would also call those scrapers thieves because they take something that belongs to someone else and it has value to them. But since most are just sitting there, waiting to slowly decay.

The only things those scrapers should be held responsible for, is when they damage a tank or something like that which pollutes the ocean (and there should be resources on how to do that safely). But then again, those fuel tanks will leak at some point anyway (they won't last forever) and it should be our responsibility (as humans) to make sure that does not happen.

Re: Thieves Who Steal Sunken Warships, Right Down to the Bolts

#28

Post by Arizhel » Sat, May 06, 2017, 2:29 PM UTC

devoply wrote: post #3

I am personally with the salvagers. They are making good use of an economic resource for themselves and for others. They are also cleaning the ocean of old debris, not getting lost in some misplaced sense of sentimentality. If the home countries of these vessels want them so bad they should simply salvage them themselves. It's stupid that we have laws that protect stuff that sunk over a few decades ago. If you can't…

I agree completely. Even worse is how some people (in the article) think that there should be regular patrols to prevent "illegal" diving at these sites. So we want to waste resources and fuel just patrolling some remote ocean site to keep people from messing with an old ship sunken decades ago, and also not let any non-salvagers just look at it? It's crazy.

I'm all for museums and saving history, but this isn't it. Museums are great: you take something that could otherwise be lost, and you preserve and protect it and put it on display so that people can see it and learn from it. Keeping people away from a sunken warship doesn't do that at all. And the concern for the feelings of relatives of these long-dead crew is nuts too. How much concern is there for the feelings of the descendants of King Tut with his body on display? With these old ships, there are no bodies in many cases: human remains don't last long in the sea, unless they're locked up in a watertight compartment.

The final paragraph of the article is the only place where they really got it right: if you want to preserve these things, then salvage them yourself and put them in a museum. If you're going to leave something abandoned in the middle of nowhere, you can't get mad when someone comes and takes it.

Re: Thieves Who Steal Sunken Warships, Right Down to the Bolts

#29

Post by Arizhel » Sat, May 06, 2017, 2:33 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #14

devoply wrote: post #3

I am personally with the salvagers. They are making good use of an economic resource for themselves and for others. They are also cleaning the ocean of old debris, not getting lost in some misplaced sense of sentimentality. If the home countries of these vessels want them so bad they should simply salvage them themselves. It's stupid that we have laws that protect stuff that sunk over a few decades ago. If you can't…

What's the difference between scrap metal and historically significant sites? The Neolithic stone circle at Avebury, Wiltshire, had several stones removed by local villages who wanted stone to build cottages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avebury In the centre of this screen, just south of Tunnel House In, you can see a square outline in a field. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Coates,+Cirencester/@51.... That's…

>People taking this metal from sunken ships aren't just cleaning up a mess, they're destroying historical information.

Who cares? If you really cared about that historical information, you'd salvage it and put it on display in a museum. "Historical information" isn't doing anyone any good sitting on the ocean floor.

>And who knows what stuff is on the ships (oil, fuel) that isn't being properly cleaned up, just dumped into the ocean?

Again, who cares? If you cared, you'd clean it up properly yourself, instead of just leaving it there to leak out into the ocean. The USS Arizona is still visibly leaking diesel fuel out into the water, and no one's doing anything about that, so it's hypocritical for you to complain about this.

This whole subject is just fraught with silly, misplaced sentimentality. I do personally agree that oil and fuel should be properly cleaned up, but we don't do that now, so it obviously isn't a valid concern. I do agree that historical information should be preserved, but we don't do that now (by leaving it inaccessible to the general public on the ocean floor in a remote part of the Pacific), so it obviously isn't a valid concern.

Re: Thieves Who Steal Sunken Warships, Right Down to the Bolts

#30

Post by ajnin » Sat, May 06, 2017, 2:37 PM UTC

devoply wrote: post #3

I am personally with the salvagers. They are making good use of an economic resource for themselves and for others. They are also cleaning the ocean of old debris, not getting lost in some misplaced sense of sentimentality. If the home countries of these vessels want them so bad they should simply salvage them themselves. It's stupid that we have laws that protect stuff that sunk over a few decades ago. If you can't…

I mostly agree with you. After 50 years untouched it should be up for grabs for anyone who cares. However as the article explains these old ships are one of the only sources of radioactivity-free steel (newer steel is contaminated by radionuclides due to the atmospheric nuclear explosions that took place from 1945). We should keep better track of it.