WHERE SHIPS GO TO DIE

19 August 2025: This week brings us 2 milestone anniversaries - one really historic  and one less so but nonetheless, worthy (to us) of notice. The first, 1812 (yes, a long time ago, I know, but significant) and the second, 2014 which, while more recent, is notable to your humble scribe. On this date in 1812, the U.S. Frigate Constitution met and humbled the British frigate HMS Guerriere in the Atlantic Ocean and beat her badly in single ship combat - the first major ship to ship encounter in the War of 1812. 

The second occurred in 2014 on 21 August; it was the first blog post on MARITIME MAUNDER, and here we are, 11 years later and too many posts to add up. Some you liked, some not so much, but they kept comin'! And will for a while longer....

Today, from www.slashgear.com, we can learn about the major ship breaking venue in the world.....

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As of 2023, there were 454 cruise ships of various types sailing around the world. With voyages that traverse the world's oceans, a cruise ship voyage can last from just two days to more than ten days, depending on its itinerary and package. Like all marine vessels, cruise ships are subjected to degradation caused by seawater, extreme weather, and the general wear and tear of it's operation. These factors, together with a determined lifespan, require cruise ships of a certain age to be retired and eventually dismantled in shipbreaking yards, the largest of which is the Alang facility, located in Gujarat, India.

 

 

There are several reasons why a cruise ship is retired; foremost, it is a complex machine, and like other machinery, these vessels get run down with age, requiring costly maintenance. While its average usable life is up to 30 years, other considerations include technological obsolescence, which can be expensive to continue to operate, and even unforeseen events that cause substantial damage. It is important to note that not all retired cruise ships are scrapped, as some are sold to smaller cruise companies, where it is reused after being renovated and remarketed.

 

For ships that are slated for scrapping, these are normally sent to the Alang shipbreaking yard, a facility where ships have been dismantled, and its metals and other components have been sold since 1983. Its location in the Cambay gulf region has made it ideal for a shipbreaking facility owing to its climate, tidal conditions, and water depth due to the shoreline layout of its continental shelf. Spread across an area of 9.3 miles, there are currently 135 different shipbreaking yards which provide employment for 15,000 individuals and is responsible for 98% of the Indian ship recycling business. 

 

The process for scrapping a ship at Alang is mostly a labor-intensive process, beginning with documenting and cataloguing the ship and its parts, including the powerful engines that power it. Next, the ship is cut up into smaller sections using acetylene cutting torches, mechanical and other tools, and the pieces are sorted per classification, ranging from metal, plastic, and glass. For the steel pieces, additional processes are employed before it is sent for material recovery. Depending on the size, a cruise ship can take between several weeks or months to be scrapped, which is roughly the same time frame as constructing a new one from scratch.

 

A majority of ship sections are made of steel, normally accounting for 75-85% of a ship's total tonnage, and the Alang shipyard can recycle 75% of the steel it reclaims from the scrapped ships. This steel is then reprocessed, turning it into finished steel products that include plates, bars, and others for use in various industries, including construction and shipbuilding. For materials that cannot be recycled, are toxic or have no value, the Alang shipyard has a facility that can process the dangerous substances, and allocated landfill areas.

 

Cruise ships are among the biggest ships in the world, and scrapping is a way of recovering some of the immense costs with building it. Scrapping a cruise ship can yield one to eight million dollars, while selling it as a used vessel can get as much as $162 million. While shipbreaking yards like Alang provide a valuable service to cruise line companies, its operations have been subject to concern due to its impact on human health and the environment, and much needs to be done to make its activities cleaner and safer. 

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Wow! Who knew (well, in fairness, I did, but ...) an interesting bit of trivia and surely a highly dangerous process. 

Until next time, stay safe!

                                        Fair winds

                                               Old Salt 

 

   

LITTLE CRAPPY SHIPS

 3 August 2025:  

So what happened to July? Hard to believe we're already in August with Autumn looming. Wow! Time really does fly! Some years ago, we wrote in this blog about the introduction of  - at that time - the U.S. Navy' newest creation, the Littoral Combat Ship, and after a careful look at the mission, parameters, and construction, determined that the sobriquet put on these vessels by their crews was apt: Little Crappy Ships. Here, from the website SLASHGEAR, is an update about what the navy is doing to try and save the program. It should be noted, however, that several of these ships have already been retired - scrapped. 

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What's The Controversy With The Littoral Combat Ship? A Brief Look At Its Complicated History

The Littoral Combat Ship was supposed to be the Navy's next big breakthrough — a lightweight, fast, and flexible vessel designed to operate close to shorelines, where larger warships struggled. But nearly two decades in, the program has become one of the most controversial chapters in Navy history. Why? Because it ran over budget, underperformed in combat roles, and many ships were decommissioned long before their expected lifespan. 

 

The Undersecretary of the Navy, Robert Work, described the ship as the "Swiss Army Knife" of the fleet — a platform meant to be quickly adapted for different missions like surface warfare, mine clearance, and anti-submarine operations. But the Navy ended up building two completely different types: the Freedom-class and the Independence-class. That added the requirement for separate crews, parts, and training pipelines. Worse, both designs were based on commercial ferry hulls with little armor, relying on the idea that crews would evacuate if under attack — a risky tradeoff in any combat zone. [ed:Capt James Lawrence ("Don't give up the ship!") was spinning in his grave! Not the Navy I grew up in!]

There were big promises, but the ship didn't deliver        

One of the Littoral Combat Ship's most ambitious features was its modular mission package system. Instead of building separate ships for different roles, the Navy envisioned a single vessel that could be reconfigured for surface warfare, anti-submarine operations, and mine hunting. Each package included a mix of specialized equipment, sensors, and even unmanned systems tailored to its mission. But this flexibility proved more theoretical than practical. For instance, the minehunting package faced reliability issues and broke down easily, while the anti-submarine package struggled with hardware integration and poor acoustic performance. Over time, both were shelved, leaving only the surface warfare package in use. 

 

What made things worse was that the ships were built to run with smaller crews, which meant they needed to be highly automated. But instead of having simple tools to fix problems, many systems were complex and locked behind special software that only private contractors could access. So when something broke, the crew couldn't fix it on their own, and they had to wait for help. On top of that, the Freedom-class ships had repeated engine problems, especially with a part called the combining gear, which connects different engines to the propeller system. These breakdowns were expensive to fix. Things got so bad that the Navy had to pull the entire LCS fleet back in 2016 for retraining after multiple failures and confusion over how to operate the ships properly.

Despite all this, the Navy didn't walk away. It scaled back the program, made upgrades, and started addressing the flaws. As a result, new missiles were added, and even drones were introduced. Ships like the USS Charleston managed to complete record-breaking deployments, showing that there was still potential. The Navy created a dedicated Task Force to focus on improving the ships' reliability. 

Some of the Independence-class ships now operate at 96% efficiency, and as of January 2025, Freedom-class ships have begun receiving new weapon systems, with more upgrades on the way. Recent additions include counter-drone capabilities using Longbow Hellfire missiles, while future upgrades are expected to bring Naval Strike Missiles and Mk 70 launchers capable of firing SM-6 and Tomahawk cruise missiles. So, the Littoral Combat Ships started as a bold idea, which then ran into a wall of reality. That said, the story isn't over. The Navy seems determined to make the most of these ships, learning from the past and trying to build something better moving forward. [ed: we'll see!]

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I surely don't want to be the guy who said, "I told you so..." but there we are. I guess time will tell if the Navy can indeed make a silk purse out of a sow's ear!

Until next time, stay safe.

                                     Fair winds,

                                           Old Salt 

 

BROKEN CROCKERY IDENTIFIES WRECK

 18 July 2025: 

July is half way done and the weather is still pretty squirrelly here in the northeast with serious storms, heat, and humidity. Summer can be exciting at times! For whatever the reason there seem to be a fair number of recreational boats still on the hard, but ours is most assuredly not! Having some lovely excursions between bouts of unkind weather; the cold will be here soon enough and we need to get in as much "water time" as we can. Here's a piece from Fox News about a 140 year old wreck that was recently identified.

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 Ship remained hidden on ocean floor since fatal 1888 collision

Divers recently identified a long-lost ship that capsized almost 140 years ago – all thanks to one broken piece of crockery.

Dominic Robinson, a former British Army officer based in Plymouth, England, identified the wreck as the SS Nantes. The ship was built in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1874.

Robinson, who served as a military helicopter pilot, told Jam Press the vessel collided with the German-flagged Theodor Ruger ship in 1888. 

"It was, when it was sunk, on passage from Liverpool to La Havre, in France, carrying [a] cargo of coal," Robinson told the news agency.

The accident proved deadly, as most of the Nantes' crew died in the English Channel.

 Former British Army officer Dominic Robinson identified the SS Nantes shipwreck, thanks to a broken plate. (Jam Press)

 

"Sadly, pretty much everybody who was on board the Nantes died," Robinson said. 

"It drifted for several hours, before it finally made its way to the bottom, sadly, with many of its crewmen on board."

Robinson noted that three people survived the wreck: two men who jumped onto the Theodor Ruger, and another who stayed on the Nantes and tried to keep the vessel afloat.

"Unfortunately, the Nantes went down about 10 hours later in the early hours of the morning and he was the only person who was picked up from that," the explorer said. 

"It's quite a sad story."

 

The ship remained unseen for almost 140 years. A local dive team came across the wreck last year, but its name was unknown until now.

The key to identifying the ship was a broken plate bearing the logo of the Cunard Line, a historic British cruise line.

Robinson said that, to identify the ship, "you try to find a list of all the Cunard ships that were sunk."

"You then try and narrow them down to, to a relatively small one, and an old one," he said.

 "We obviously know where it sank, so if you can find information about the sinking and the wreck that aligns all those things up, then it's fairly straightforward to identify it."

Thanks to information from the UK Hydrographic Office, the team was also able to verify the length of the Nantes, which measured roughly 260 feet.

 

Ascertaining the wreck's length was crucial to the ship’s identification, along with the Cunard plate.

"Not surprisingly, [the plate] is what gave us the most significant clue," he said.

The discovery comes as marine archaeologists worldwide are unearthing countless shipwrecks every year.

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Sometimes it's the smallest thing that provides the eureka! moment! There are countless stories of dogged research that has led to an important discovery. Well done Dominic Robinson!

Until next time.

                             Fair Winds,      

                                 Old Salt