Scuttling the ghost ship

March 15, 2016 6:29 AM

Viking, the last boat of the "Bandit 6", has been captured and scuttled by the Indonesian authorities.

For Indonesia, which has been waging a war on illegal fishing since 2014 and aspires to be a maritime power, the capture of the infamous Viking was a point of pride. President Joko Widodo tweeted about it, noting that while 13 countries had been hunting for the Viking, Indonesia managed to catch it.

(previously on Metafilter)

posted by clockworkwasp (10 comments total)

Jakarta Post link:

"During the arrest, Susi said that the Navy had also found a gillnet, a wall of netting that hangs in the water column, with a total length of 399 kilometers.

“These nets will clearly disrupt and destroy fish resources and violate the ministry’s regulation on fishing routes and placements, where gillnets can only be used if its length is less than 2.5 kilometers,”
...
“From the documents, it was discovered that the fish caught in its operations were often dropped in Thailand. Other documents also showed that the vessel repeatedly restocked equipment as well as had repairs in Singapore,” she said. “The FV Viking also has connections with fishing companies in Spain.”

See also:
Marine Policy Volume 48, September 2014, Pages 102–113
Estimates of illegal and unreported fish in seafood imports to the USA
doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2014.03.019
" our protein-hungry planet faces an unprecedented crisis of overfishing – 85% of all commercial stocks are now fished up to their biological limits or beyond ..."
posted by hank at 8:34 AM on March 15, 2016 [3 favorites]

Eat up, eat up! It's like worrying about maintaining fuel economy as you hurtle over the cliff. If the planet survives the fishies will, too. If not - it's all farts in the wind. Eat up!
posted by Meatbomb at 8:40 AM on March 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

"He also tweeted that the ship would be sunk half-body as a monument against illegal fishing, way to ruin what appears to be a pristine beach ." There, fixed that..

Why wouldn't they haul that out to deep water to sink it?
posted by HuronBob at 8:40 AM on March 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

Why wouldn't they haul that out to deep water to sink it?

An awful lot of the vessels the Indonesian government has been sinking will be amazing dive sites.
posted by foodgeek at 8:47 AM on March 15, 2016 [3 favorites]

Why wouldn't they haul that out to deep water to sink it?

Why would they sink it at all, if they're supposedly trying to save the marine habitat, rather than introduce tons of gasoline, metal, plastic and other goodies into it??
posted by Mooseli at 9:35 AM on March 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

Why.
posted by hank at 9:40 AM on March 15, 2016 [4 favorites]

Hey, while they're at it can they scuttle the companies that financed this boat?
posted by Existential Dread at 9:55 AM on March 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

They sink boats like that to act as a site for coral to grow don't they?
posted by VTX at 10:13 AM on March 15, 2016

Why would they sink it at all, if they're supposedly trying to save the marine habitat, rather than introduce tons of gasoline, metal, plastic and other goodies into it??

If they are doing it the same way the US Navy does they will strip it down to the shell before scuttling.
posted by srboisvert at 11:44 AM on March 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

HuronBob: "way to ruin what appears to be a pristine beach ." There, fixed that.."

50 years from now people will be pissed off when someone accidentally burns it up with steel wool blows it up with fire works (assuming it's steel rather than wood).
posted by Mitheral at 12:38 PM on March 15, 2016