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Stranded sailor allowed to leave abandoned ship after four years

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Re: Stranded sailor allowed to leave abandoned ship after four years

#61
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering about this. My guess (just a guess) was that since he wants to still work in this industry, he was afraid that abandoning the ship would hurt his career? Either that, or he's just an incredibly responsible person.

If you’ve been unjustly imprisoned for several years, you probably don’t worry too much about your career?

Ever heard of graduate school?

Re: Stranded sailor allowed to leave abandoned ship after four years

#62

The Egyptian legal system is not known for its fairness... the World Justice Project ranks it 125 of 128 surveyed countries, in last place out of 8 countries in the Middle East[1] Similarly (and tragically) the Syrian government is not known for its compassion towards its distressed citizens. [1] https://worldjusticeproject.org/rule-of-law-index/country/Eg...

Most people may think I’m being pessimistic and jaded. But I think these rankings are hilarious (in a bad sense). Just like the corruption rankings that come out. The US gets a green square and a high rank, smaller countries are corrupt and unfair. I could fill up paragraphs about how corrupt and dysfunctional our (US) legal and political systems are. Meanwhile I spent a long time in Central Africa (a red square coun…

You think Central Africa is less corrupt and more just than the USA? Jeez, that takes the cake hey.

I’m from Africa, have left now, and this is pure nonsense.

The USA doesn’t have to be literally perfect for it to be a good place.

Re: Stranded sailor allowed to leave abandoned ship after four years

#63
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I don't understand what value there is here in assigning it to the crew member who apparently can't decline? Even if he could manage the ship, a random crew member is highly unlikely to have resources to care for a ship like that... what value is there in assigning him this responsibility? They just punishing someone for the sake of it?

I suspect it is like assigning child support to fathers even if they were raped or it is not their kid. Somebody needs to do it and the crew members are the simplest people to task it to.

Do what?

The ship had no fuel, it went adrift and ran aground...

Re: Stranded sailor allowed to leave abandoned ship after four years

#64
post #8

It is supremely unfair for the court to assign him full responsibility for the ship, but without any power over it. If the court were serious about the situation they should have handed the ship over to him entirely. He could then put the ship up on the market for whomever wanted to buy it or sell it to a scrapping company. If you think this would be unfair to the ships owners this is exactly the point. Force them to…

Yeah that is the part I do not understand. Isn't there a law at sea where if you find an abandoned ship, it is basically yours? Perhaps this law doesn't apply in Egyptian national waters? If he is the legal guardian of the ship, why wouldn't he be able to just sell it for profit and move on? Was it just that there would be no buyer for it, even to scrap it? Or could there have been fines/liens on that ship such that…

It's not abandoned. The government assigned this guy as the caretaker of the property.

Re: Stranded sailor allowed to leave abandoned ship after four years

#65
> "And I can't find a single person on this planet - and I've tried - to replace him."

I’ll do it for $10M/year, paid in advance of course due to the company’s financial situation. Oh, he probably means for whatever meager wages they were paying this guy. Yeah, no wonder.

Re: Stranded sailor allowed to leave abandoned ship after four years

#66
The saddest part of this unfair ordeal is that his mother died while he was confined to this ship, and he couldn’t go visit her or attend the funeral. This article notes, he contemplated suicide then.

Shipping companies regularly do this to their crew, abandoning them when the costs of properly managing the situation aren’t worth it to them. Note that ship abandonment is also what led to the devastating explosion in Beirut, Lebanon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Rhosus

Re: Stranded sailor allowed to leave abandoned ship after four years

#67
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

according to news articles he SWAM to shore to pick up basic supplies. Not even a small rowing boat or something was made available to him.

In the article it states that he started swimming to shore only after the ship had run aground a few hundred meters from the shore. So the question remains, how did he sustain himself beforehand? Did the ship have years worth of supplies for him on board?

I was wondering the same thing, since the ship had no power either perishables would go bad quickly, also where did he get money to buy food later on? Was it his savings?

Re: Stranded sailor allowed to leave abandoned ship after four years

#68
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I don't understand what value there is here in assigning it to the crew member who apparently can't decline? Even if he could manage the ship, a random crew member is highly unlikely to have resources to care for a ship like that... what value is there in assigning him this responsibility? They just punishing someone for the sake of it?

I suspect it is like assigning child support to fathers even if they were raped or it is not their kid. Somebody needs to do it and the crew members are the simplest people to task it to.

Do what exactly? Keep the ship company so it won't feel lonely? It doesn't seem like there was anything for him to do during those years.

Re: Stranded sailor allowed to leave abandoned ship after four years

#69

The Egyptian legal system is not known for its fairness... the World Justice Project ranks it 125 of 128 surveyed countries, in last place out of 8 countries in the Middle East[1] Similarly (and tragically) the Syrian government is not known for its compassion towards its distressed citizens. [1] https://worldjusticeproject.org/rule-of-law-index/country/Eg...

Most people may think I’m being pessimistic and jaded. But I think these rankings are hilarious (in a bad sense). Just like the corruption rankings that come out. The US gets a green square and a high rank, smaller countries are corrupt and unfair. I could fill up paragraphs about how corrupt and dysfunctional our (US) legal and political systems are. Meanwhile I spent a long time in Central Africa (a red square coun…

I believe that the goal is to put pressure on those countries and make investors afraid of placing money there. Of course that a single ranking can't make this, but having multiple indexes + media narrative in this sense can create great leverage for unfair trade deals.

If for example you consider lobbying=corruption (in many countries it is), then the US should indeed be many rankings below.

Re: Stranded sailor allowed to leave abandoned ship after four years

#70
post #9

Why would you write an article like this without a word describing the legal consequences of leaving the ship? What consequence would be worth four years of your life? Edit: a more useful video linked below explains that the authorities confiscated his passport. That would make it difficult to leave. Though I'd probably try anyway after a year of that.

I saw this video[1] on Youtube that goes a bit more in depth into the situation. Apparently after he became the legal guardian of the ship, the Egyptian govt took his passport to prevent him from leaving.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zD-KjuGuiM

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