Ghost ships..

As far as I can tell, the pollutants are mainly asbestos and HVO. I and, I suspect many posters on this board, spent many years in this environment on the oceans of the world in the 60s, 70s and 80s and it does not seem to have done me any harm. Asbestos is no problem unless it is disturbed. If Hartlepool has the expertise to dispose of it cleanly, good on them and I hope they make lots of money out of it. The environmetalists should be on their side as they are ridding the world of a problem. The ships concerned have been laid up for many years. I doubt if they have been deliberately polluted in any way. The proverbial storm in a teacup.

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Surely this is all politically correct, green, media hype.
These ships contain some asbestos and some PCBs. This is not the stuff of environmental catastrophe. This is just some nasty stuff you need to be careful with. We have all been living with these chemicals for the last 50 years and the world has not ended yet.
By all means let's be careful with this stuff but no need for the doom reaction.

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Re: problem is that

politically correct and motivated ones NO, especially ones who take every opportunity to knock the usa. now thats not to say that the usa gets it right every time but it would appear that all left wingers hate the usa full stop.

stu

<hr width=100% size=1>http://www.beneteau-owners-association.org.uk
 
Re: Teacup. Storm in.

Totally agreed. I have and I am sure many other posters have worked on ships with these materials.
Brian



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Re: problem is that

I think that the idea that environmentalist=left wing is a bit dubious to say the least, and not particularly helpful.

However, I would certainly agree that the USA is no.1 on the average environmentalists' list of bad guys. The mere fact that they are 10% of the world's population using 50% of its resources, plus their refusal to ratify the Kyoto protocol, pretty much ensures that.

That doesn't mean environmentalists 'hate' the USA - they just despair of its leaders . . .

- Nick

<hr width=100% size=1><font size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.bluemoment.com>http://www.bluemoment.com</A></font size=1>
 
If anyone is interested, here are a few facts

The facility at which Able UK Ltd propose to dismantle these ships is a dry dock built for constructing North Sea oil platforms - long since redundant for that purpose, of course. It is surrounded, not by housing, but be chemical manufacturing installations. For the past three years, it has been used for dismantling North Sea oil structures, which, as folks may recall from the Brent Spar saga are not always surgically clean themselves. It has done this without any problems.

A High Court Judge has just ruled that the dismantling must not go ahead for at least the next three weeks. This means that the ships will be sitting at anchor off a busy commercial port in an area adjacent to three oil pipelines for three weeks at least at a time of year when the weather is not always perfect.

Most of the ships which used to form the US Strategic Reserve Fleet have been towed across the Pacific and dismantled in East Asia over the past thirty years; these ships are some of the last few to go. As others have said, they don't contain any very unusual substances, compared to the average ship of their vintage. The decision to sell them for breaking in Britain reflects the provisions of the Basel Convention, which prohibits the disposal of waste from the OECD nations in less developed nations.

The last pre-Marpol VLCC to be sold for breaking in South Asia went for the unhead-of price of US$274 per light displacement ton - a very high figure, which reflects strong world steel demand and strong freight rates. In a normal breaking environment, with a price of less than half that, it would be impossible for UK breakers, complying with health and safety regulations, to make money on the job.

<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?
 
Re: Teacup. Storm in.

According to the com[pany that would like to break them up in their dry dock facility the ships in question contain about 50 tons of asbestos.

No more than any similar sized ship of that age.Obviously there are other pollutants such as heavy metal in antifoul etc but once again no more than normal.

To put it in perspective powerstations would involve considerably more asbestos removal on decommisioning.

The jobs are needed,the company has invested millions in the facility lets give them a license to do the work under strictl;y controlled conditions.On the grounds that future licenses will depend on good results.

The Americans are actually showing some responsible attitude in sending them here,the job could be done cheaply in places such as Bangladesh where ships are burned up on the beach no questions asked and no precautions taken to protect the environment or the workers health and safety.

Like most of us I would appreciate less media hype and more hard facts on the issue so we can make better informed opinions.

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Re: Teacup. Storm in.

Mirelles post appeared while Iwas writing mine sorry that they are basically similar.Mirelles is a lot more informative Imust say.

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Re: Teacup. Storm in.

The main thing is that we agree. I'm a freelance shipping journalist and had just been talking to the Lloyd's List newsroom.

Personally, whilst I almost expect Greenpeace to jump up and down, I have been very disappointed by Friends of the Earth, who have a track record of being quite sensible in shipping related matters.

<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?
 
Re: Teacup. Storm in.

I live in Hartlepool, IMHO the tree hugging, interfering, miss-informed knee jerk reactionaries that have jumped on the latest bandwagon should go out and get a job, wash, haircut, (delete as appropriate). Perhaps if they could pause for long enough to get their heads out of their collective a***s they would realise that the pollution problem allready exists. What is their answer? leave them where they are to sink perhaps, Can't do that. I know we'll maintain them (for ever?). Of course there is the question of all that paint and antifouling to worry about. Able U.K have the facilities and expertise to dismantle them safely whilst bringing work and money into the area. As for the asbestos, they have been safely dealing with waste of this kind for years. Perhaps they would rather they were sent out to that beach in India, after all they could all pat themselves on the back and say how well they had all done in getting them away from British waters. These are the same people who spent years screaming about renewable energy, now we are getting it they are screaming about spoiling the view with wind farms. It is time that enviromentalists realised that there is more to preserving the enviroment than just shouting NO! at every opportunity. I speak as one who has seen the s**t and litter left at the well publicized camps peopled by "enviromentalists" trying to prevent a new road through some trees. Let those who know what they are doing do it, the rest should wind their necks in and shut up. All IMHO of course. Mike

<hr width=100% size=1>"Naaa mate, she's made of tin"
 
Re: Teacup. Storm in.

Well said, Ilike a man who calls a spade a spade instead of a manual earth moving implement.

Meanwhile as the Nimbys etc whinge and whine and the legal tortoise takes a nap,what if one blows ahore in a gale.

Uncontrolled release of all the nasty stuff and probably some bunker oil left in the tanks to bind the mess together on the beach.

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Re: Teacup. Storm in.

Which is why they have to be dealt with now. Not left to decay to such a state that the very act of moving them becomes too dangerous. Some of the tub thumpers refer to these vessels as an ecological time bomb once they are dismantled. Surely they are a time bomb where they are as the vessels sit in a corrosive soup called sea water. 50 tons of asbestos is 50 tons of asbestos wherever it is. and I for one would rather see it safely disposed of in a sealed containers buried well below ground a few miles from my house than see it bobbing about in a rusting hulk 3000+ miles away. of course that will mean I am not an enviromentalist as I do not subscribe to the all too prevelent "Not in my back yard" mentality which seems to be the norm these days. If the Yanks can't/won't get rid of this mess then why shouldn't we make them pay us to do it for them. Its funny, I thought getting paid to supply a service was called commerce and is largely responsible for the vast majority of us on this forum being able to afford the vessels we sail and live the life we do, of course it's not as enviromentally friendly as selling mines to third world despots. Mike.

<hr width=100% size=1>"Naaa mate, she's made of tin"
 
Re: Your backyard

Well if you and the rest of the citizens of Hartlepool are OK with them and those living and sailing along the South Coast and up the East Coast are OK with these Ghost Ships coming to the UK too then that's fine.

But I will still lobby for the nuclear subs on the Clyde to be decomissioned and broken up in Devonport..

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Fine in my back yard

The term "ghost ship" is perhaps not very helpful - but all that it means is that these ships were part of the "ghost fleet" of hopelessly out of date merchant ships, often dating from WW2, that the US Department of Defense maintained for decades, in case of some unforeseen emergency - but by the end of the 1960's the ships were already past the point where they could have been reactivated or would have been useful if reactivated.

I wonder if you have ever thought what proportion of Russia's oil exports pass down the English Channel, close to the English coast, laden aboard the less well maintained examples of the world's older tankers, which are cheap to hire, because Russia is not a member of the EU and cannot care less about EU shipping policy?

The answer, incidentally, is "an awful lot!"

<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?
 
Re: Fine in my back yard

I only called them Ghost Ships as that is what the medja are calling them..

As for the billions of tons or even tonnes of potential pollutants that pass thro the channel .. my point is that should we be encouraging this movement where the purpose is disposal (not supplies) .. I cannot see how letting hulks deteriorate and slowly release pollutants into the environment could be deemed to be an environmentally or safe option. But wouldn't breaking on site or as close to their last port be a the way forward.. ?

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Re: If anyone is interested, here are a few facts

What I want to know is.

What is happening to their anchor chains?

We have 12,000 feet of ground chains for our moorings and the dam stuff keeps rotting in the saltwater.

How can I buy some?

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