One of these days I’d really like to try this!
These ships all look fairly new, I kept wondering why the hell they’re being scrapped. Seems like a huge waste to me. 🙁
They didn’t say it in the video, but I bet this was filmed in Alang.
Captain Jills Journeys
She sails the seven seas in search of FREEDOM
The problem is economic obsolescence. These ships can’t be operated at a profit even if purchased for less than scrap value.
well….you said it so I 2nd it…also double haul requirements also kill them
I didn’t see any tankers in this video, I think tankships are the only ones required to be double hulled at this point (yes, it did cause a LOT-most- tankers to be scrapped years ago).
I would expect that owners would run their ships until they cost too much to maintain, these all looked in pretty good shape. That’s what surprised me about it. It’s MUCH more profitable to use an older ship (especially once it’s finally paid for) if it’s been kept up and the maintenance cost doesn’t run up the bills too high.
I’m not sure how any ship can operate at a profit now a days! I know some of them do, but they ALL seem to just scrape by with very small margins. These ships all looked like they had quite a few years left in them. I think it’s more a question of oversupply of some ship types. That cruise ship (or large ferry) looked like it would be very nice still, but I wouldn’t know where they could use that and make a lot of money. Cruise ships have very large crews (not that they get paid much- they don’t) but owners are ALWAYS complaining about cost of crew like it’s their biggest expense. All those other ships probably had less than 20 crewmembers each. The smaller ones probably only half that!
If I knew the answer, I would be running a shipping company.
LOL. I would love to do that but don’t have the capital. WAAAAY too many rules and regulations to make it easy to run a profitable and efficient company. Its all about who you know, basically schmooze up the politicians to favor you and not the competition (just like most other industries). I wouldn’t want to be any kind of business owner any more in the states!
Got to admit it does look like fun. I like to see how much water they displace. 🙂
Yes, it does look fun. I’ve heard it’s quite an experience. I’ve never had a chance yet. I have taken a ship to the scrapyard, but we only took it up the river to a dock, nothing dramatic like in the video. I’d like to have the experience at least once. 🙂