One wonders if you could drop a battery operated GPS beacon reporting by satellite on these things to report back their position once a day once it has been abandoned. Something like that should be able to run for a couple of years at least.<p>Maritime salvage law is always interesting as it feels like it was mostly written in the 1600 and 1700's :-)
Basically, it's a race-to-the-bottom as far as responsibility for the externalities [1] of ship-based transportation goes. Why does Bolivia, a land-locked, third world nations "have one of the largest commercial fleets in the world"[2]. If responsibility for the negative parts of shipping can be shifted indefinitely, it means it never goes into costs, which facilitates trade and "wage arbitrage" [3].<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_convenience" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_convenience</a><p>[3] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_labor_arbitrage" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_labor_arbitrage</a>
Well, Ireland still has a Receiver of Wrecks. It's their problem now.<p>Any of the big salvage companies, Titan or Smit or Mammoet, can deal with such a wreck if paid to do so. It's expensive, but routine. Ireland has local salvage companies, too. Once it's decided who pays the bill, one of them will probably be brought into deal with the mess.
if anyone is interested in this topic of how these things happen and the general lawlessness of the seas due to tragedy of the commons I highly recommend Outlaw Ocean by Ian Urbina
> Various authorities had become aware of its aimless drift around the world. It was last spotted in September 2019 by a British Royal Navy ship.<p>I wonder if the mythological archetype of the "ghost ship" originated from cases like this: unidentified, unmanned ships roaming the seas on their own, in a time before there was a global record of abandoned ships. Doesn't take a huge leap of the imagination to assume they're crewed by ghosts.
> Normally, damaged or sunken ships remain the property of their owners, who are responsible for securing a solution...<p>Sounds like that was written on behalf of public companies who imagined they'd always want to assert their ownership rights. It was not written while mindful of the possibility of anonymous LLCs who have a salvage bill, an environmental problem, and rescue operations expenses tied to the ship and would rather it sank in the middle of the ocean...
It turns out the premise of the brilliant game "Return of the Obra Dinn" was not unrealistic at all. Highly recommended! <a href="https://obradinn.com/" rel="nofollow">https://obradinn.com/</a>