Scuttling a ship

 

 

Scuttling a ship

  Scuttling is defined as the deliberate sinking of a ship. There are many plausible and even honourable reasons for this activity of sinking of vessel. The ship may constitute a navigational hazard and its removal from a port approach, for example by sinking reduces the hazards to navigation. A ship may have a fire or explosion and become impossible to save yet it constitutes a danger to shipping. Sinking it might be considered the solution. A classic example of this was the super tanker Torrey Canyon off the Scilly Islands of South West England. The UK government called in the Air Force to bomb it without the result they hoped for!

Today any deliberate or accidental sinking must take account of the environmental consequences of such an act. Oil pollution is often the result from leaking cargo or engine or generator fuel. One environmentally friendly scuttling of a ship is to provide an artificial underwater habitat. These have been successful once the removal of all contents leaves the ship clean.

Remember that a ship, especially today’s mega ships, are a very valuable asset carrying a very valuable cargo whether it is oil, dry bulk cargo or containers. So they need insurance to cover any eventual loss of cargo or ship or both. Such high insurance premiums are generally placed with large well-known insurance broking houses that can share the insurance load amongst it’s members.

But, what if the scuttling of a ship was a deliberate act in order to claim insurance repayment? Akin to burning your house down or driving your car into a lake and claiming it was an accident. For older vessels such insurance repayment would exceed the freight revenue from legitimate trading.

There is an increasing number of these events often setup by criminal networks using excuses for piracy, fire and structural failure to explain the disappearance of a ship.

One, well documented case, can be read in the true-life case of a ship in the book “Dead in the water” by Matthew Campbell and Kit Chellel