MSC box ship under attack by armed gang in the Gulf of Guinea
As The Loadstar went to press there were reports that an MSC containership was under ...
© Khunaspix Dreamstime.
The 2009 hijacking by Somali pirates of the US-flagged Maersk Alabama, en route from Djibouti to Mombasa, was one of the most dramatic acts in the many chapters of the piracy story that has played out in recent years. And over the weekend it took ...
Comment on this article
When a Tom Hanks movie just isn’t enough « MaritimeInsight
May 31, 2012 at 4:55 pm[…] Proving there is absolutely no-one like an American for a highly developed sense of bathos, it seems that the crew of Maersk Alabama have decided that resisting pirates, being rescued by Navy Seals and immortalisation by Hollywood just aren’t enough by way of fame and have decided to sue Maersk for putting them in harm’s way. […]
Whitey Joe Young
October 17, 2014 at 11:17 amA highly developed sense of bathos is not required to appreciate the pro-shipping hypocracy of MaritimeInsight, in expecting that being traumatized, then expecting to “exhalt” in the “fame” of it, is enough compensation. The crew saved the cargo and ship, and this in spite of having been asked to fight AK-47’s with firehoses.
No, the USCG “approving” a security plan does not mean it is sufficiently robust to deliberately steam thru pirate-infested waters. I imagine it actually doesn’t mean much at all. Perhaps one could start by enumerating the number of times the Coast Guard did *not* approve a security plan for similar vessels in similar circumstances. Yea, I didn’t think so. If the approval is reflexive and rote, it doesn’t mean anything.
The bottom line is the bottom line. Why would the crew need to be especially virtuous in wanting just the intangible “fame” while Maersk demands to show a profit from its operations? No, sirs, the crew deserve their just compensation as well. Hazard duty demands hazard pay, and to pooh-pooh the move as “bathos” shows us how little “insight” MaritimeInsight really has.
Whitey Joe Young
October 17, 2014 at 11:19 amOh, yea, the movie is out. Watch it!