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Stranded sailor allowed to leave abandoned ship after four years

bbc.com

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

#231

Post by worldsayshi »

jollybean wrote: post #196
justinator wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvote me all you want it's not not true. Rich people don't exist without exploiting the poor; so too with countries. I'm not sorry if you're wealthy and this is hurting too close to home, better live with it if you also want to be so wealthy.

Countries mostly become rich by being highly socially organized, and having a high standard for individual contribution. For example, 'gold' imported by ill-gotten means from some far off land actually provides 0 value in terms of material value creation. Of course 'oil' does, but remember the 'House of Saud' is kept in power by the US not with the promise of US access to 'cheap oil', rather, with the promise it will…

This feels slightly more true than the comment you responded to. But I feel that important aspects are left out.

I don't feel like I can make much justice for those aspects but here's my two cents: Selling oil on the free market disproportionately benefits those that own the means to process and resell it further. Or rather, those that ultimately coordinate global oil logistics. The global fossil fuel market doesn't exactly seem like a "free" market. There are few players and they are powerful.

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

#232

Post by karaterobot »

justinator wrote: post #176
jollybean wrote: post #130

Folks - this is what we are outsourcing and externalizing. When foreign entities are able to bid for a lot less, and pay a lot less, a lot of it has to do with the fact that they will not bother with 'end of life' for ships, or getting insurance, or worrying about the lives of people who are 'expendable'. Those very nice buildings in Dubai come from some nasty labour practices. If every piece of this puzzle from end-…

[flagged]

If I had to name an economic system where ordinary people were made to wait for a long time due to pointless and arbitrary decisions made by a bureaucracy that doesn't care about them, capitalism would not be the first thing that came to mind.

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

#233

Post by harry8 »

Aerroon wrote: post #161
munk-a wrote: post #81

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? The article doesn't state it really explicitly but I believe he was able to decline but maybe not aware of when that decision would need to be made - specifically this passage here: > "I can't force a judge to remove the legal guardianship," a representative [of the shipping company] told us. "And I can…

> I'd hold the shipping company completely at fault for letting this situation develop - they had options to replace him Why? Then there would be someone else stuck in that situation. The problem is almost entirely with the Egyptian authorities. Such a situation shouldn't even be possible to develop. The first mate in the article might not have understood the ramifications of what he signed, but the Egyptian court ce…

>Why? Then there would be someone else stuck in that situation.

The CEO was the right person to to replace him immediately until they could make it a sufficiently attractive proposition that someone else would want to do it. You know by the usual means. Pay, supply drops, fuel for power etc.

The shipping company's CEO is 100% responsible for not dealing with the situation properly because they absolutely did not do that in any way, shape or form. It's so bad I would have no issue with the company being blacklisted as a criminal organisation.

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

#234

Post by mrb »

bagacrap wrote: post #202
mrb wrote: post #106

His ship has been sitting still for so long that you can see it on Google Maps: https://www.google.com/maps/place/%D8%B3%D9%81%D9%8A%D9%86%D... Edit: a few more story details here: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/19/ever-giv... When he rows to shore to get supplies he can only stay for two hours at most as the area is a restricted military zone. Other crew members were repatriated in September 2019,…

this is 2021 is it not? He was alone for 19 months.

Err, you are right.

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

#235

Post by jollybean »

worldsayshi wrote: post #231
jollybean wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries mostly become rich by being highly socially organized, and having a high standard for individual contribution. For example, 'gold' imported by ill-gotten means from some far off land actually provides 0 value in terms of material value creation. Of course 'oil' does, but remember the 'House of Saud' is kept in power by the US not with the promise of US access to 'cheap oil', rather, with the promise it will…

This feels slightly more true than the comment you responded to. But I feel that important aspects are left out. I don't feel like I can make much justice for those aspects but here's my two cents: Selling oil on the free market disproportionately benefits those that own the means to process and resell it further. Or rather, those that ultimately coordinate global oil logistics. The global fossil fuel market doesn't…

The means to process and transport oil are commodity, there's very little surplus in it. It just requires a bit of investment, but not much.

Exclusive control of 'easy access to Oil' is overwhelmingly the power in that value chain.

The 'first order' issue is earlier in the process, it's that 'House of Saud' keeps most of the surplus for their family and furthermore use it to do some suppressive things.

The fossil fuel market it is very open, and market oriented. It has obvious geostrategic artifacts (notably the petrodollar, some politicians refusal to build pipelines, military support of interventions, OPEC), but it's generally open season. Nobody controls the flow of spice melange.

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

#236

Post by econnors »

hi41 wrote: post #226
mrb wrote: post #106

His ship has been sitting still for so long that you can see it on Google Maps: https://www.google.com/maps/place/%D8%B3%D9%81%D9%8A%D9%86%D... Edit: a few more story details here: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/19/ever-giv... When he rows to shore to get supplies he can only stay for two hours at most as the area is a restricted military zone. Other crew members were repatriated in September 2019,…

The article says he swam ashore to buy supplies. Why can’t he simply walk away and not return to the ship. The article does not clarify that point. Anyone knows?

I assume he'd be arrested as a fugitive

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

#237

Post by FpUser »

lolinder wrote: post #193
novok wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fault here is ultimately with egypt. They were not letting him leave, they took his passport and not even letting him get 'deported' back to his home country. This is not from outsourcing, this is Kafkaesque bureaucracy created by Egypt itself.

Egypt definitely has fault here, but the company that owns the ship could have gotten the ship out of there if they cared about him at all. Yes, it might have been expensive, but I would expect a US based company to have rescued him within weeks of this situation starting, not years.

Depends on what company. One headed by people like Ross Perot ( RIP ) definitely will. The other that runs private jail would most likely let people expire if it makes them extra dollar.

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

#238

Post by munk-a »

Aerroon wrote: post #161
munk-a wrote: post #81

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? The article doesn't state it really explicitly but I believe he was able to decline but maybe not aware of when that decision would need to be made - specifically this passage here: > "I can't force a judge to remove the legal guardianship," a representative [of the shipping company] told us. "And I can…

> I'd hold the shipping company completely at fault for letting this situation develop - they had options to replace him Why? Then there would be someone else stuck in that situation. The problem is almost entirely with the Egyptian authorities. Such a situation shouldn't even be possible to develop. The first mate in the article might not have understood the ramifications of what he signed, but the Egyptian court ce…

I'm really unfamiliar with maritime laws but I wouldn't be surprised if seizing unmanned boats that are flying the flags of a different country but within your waters is somehow a touchy international grey-zone.

This situation was created by the country essentially leaving a 4k tonne vessel derelict off the coast of Eygpt after failing to pay to fuel its ride home so there isn't going to be an easy answer here. It might be that the company had some act-of-god like circumstance happen (like an employee fraudulently embezzling funds and tampering with a fuel gauge to make it look like the ship had far more fuel than it did though... that's insanely unlikely given how shifty everyone is acting).

Egypt might be in a position where they've got a rusting leaking hunk of trash off their coast that they can't remove without causing an international incident and, forcing some member of the company to remain with the wreck might just be intended to force the company to actually call in salvagers to resolve the situation (which would likely be a large asset loss for the company).

I really don't think Egypt is likely the worst actor in this situation but it was cruel what they put this man through. Ideally the administrator trying to untangle this POS would realize this employee has essentially no power to resolve the situation and release them home - but his options to escape were likely pretty few.

If you're a passing ship the last thing you want to do is piss off Egypt since the country is pretty corrupt and controls the Suez Canal (which you plan on sailing through if your ship is anywhere in the neighborhood) - getting on their bad side is likely a one-way ticket to random inspections and tariffs or an outright ban and the only land close enough for the man to flee to was Egypt itself - so he'd need to sneakily emigrate... he's heading back to Syria so that means he'd need to cross the Egyptian-Israeli border under the radar and potentially without a passport - and probably with very little cash.

I really feel for this dude when he says he was struggling with depression because his situation was utterly screwed - the universe really wasn't on his side.... buuuut, I think the company owning the ship comes out the worst. The article doesn't have the details but something seriously slimy was going on there.

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

#240

Post by jacurtis »

munk-a wrote: post #81
duxup wrote: 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?

> Yeah I don't understand what value there is here in assigning it to the crew member who apparently can't decline? The article doesn't state it really explicitly but I believe he was able to decline but maybe not aware of when that decision would need to be made - specifically this passage here: > "I can't force a judge to remove the legal guardianship," a representative [of the shipping company] told us. "And I can…

I might be misunderstanding the situation, but it sounds like the original captain knew what was going on and sacrificed Mohammed for his own freedom. I assume the captain has original responsibility in this case. The captain left the ship and never came back. He presumably told Egyptians that his first officer is now in charge, or the Egyptians boarded the ship and determined that the First Officer was the highest ranking official on the ship.

Either way it sounds like the Captain probably knew what was going on. When the Captain learned that the parent company had ran out of money, he probably was aware of these cases of seafarer abandonment and decided he didn't want to be one of them. So he left the ship, leaving the responsibility on Mohammed.

Mohammed claimed he didn't really know the meaning of this responsibility until everyone else started disembarking. It sounds like by then the captain had been gone, for at least 4 months, and potentially longer.

The Captain sacrificed Mohammed here. Either way, someone was going to be abandoned on that vessel. I think the Captain saw the writing on the wall and abandoned quickly, shifting responsibility onto someone else.

There are lots of people at fault here. Egyptian authorities, Tyson Shipping and Marine Company (which seems to have continued operating despite all this), and the Captain. Unfortunately Mohammed is one of the innocent ones caught in the middle. He shouldn't have signed the paper as the shipping company is quick to point out. But that doesn't resolve the real issue. It would have just meant the Captain or someone else would have been forced into this situation.

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