Saturday 7 April 2012

Ghost Ship Sunk

Stephen Fry had a great quote about the American military during the Gulf War. 'You see them riding around in wrap-around shades with music blaring out and you think nice tank, are there any grown ups around?'
The quote came back to me when i read about the Japanese 'ghost ship' which was washed out to sea in last year's tsunami disaster which has now been sunk by the US Coast Guard near Alaska.
Despite a Canadian salvage boat being nearby, the Americans decided that just chucking a few ropes on board and towing it back to a breakers yard was too much hard work, so they shot it up instead.
The ship survived an initial barrage of shells that left it ablaze but still afloat so after putting out the flames, the coastguard tried again with more powerful explosives and finally sunk it to the bottom of the sea.
So why was the ship sunk and the sea further polluted with thousands of gallons of diesel and oil?
'It's less risky than it would be running into shore or running into traffic' a straight faced coastguard spokesman said before sticking out his arms and running off making airplane noises. Probably.

2 comments:

Nog said...

I don't know about the salvage, but people are generally happier about an oil spill in the central Pacific than on the Californian coast. Maybe the navy folks are really board and thought it would be a kick to sink an advancing Japanese ship for old-time's sake.

Lucy said...

I would have thought they would have drained away the oil and diesel first but apparently not. Maybe they couldn't for some reason but it all seems a bit like the decision of what to do with it was made by someone who wears their baseball cap around the wrong way and calls people dude.