✶Explainer
Why shipping is still a lawless, cowboy industry
Despite carrying 90% of everything we buy, global shipping remains secretive, under-policed and dominated by wealthy, hidden owners. Kit Chellel explains that unlike most of the economy, shipping never modernized into transparency, leaving it 'lawless around the edges' with widespread crime.
- Roughly 90% of everything you own arrived by ship
- We're more reliant on ships than at any point in human history
- The industry stayed secretive, wealthy-owned, and outside public and law-enforcement view
- A lot of crime happens at sea that never surfaces publicly
“It's still kind of lawless around the edges. It's still dominated by like very secretive, wealthy people.”
“90% of everything, and that runs from your iPhone through to a Barbie doll you bought for your daughter... it's all come by boat.”
#shipping#maritime#crime#industry
✶Explainer
Past 10 miles offshore, there is effectively no law
Chellel explains why crime at sea goes unpunished: national police and agencies only reach about 10 miles offshore, and beyond that jurisdiction falls between the cracks of the flag state, owner nationality and cargo route. If a sailor is thrown overboard and the crew is intimidated into silence, no police force has the resources or mandate to prosecute.
- Law enforcement reaches only ~10 miles offshore
- At sea you're technically subject to your flag's law, but enforcement is near-impossible
- Overlapping nationalities of ship, owner, crew, insurer and cargo make jurisdiction unclear
- Historically, criminals escaped justice simply by boarding a ship
“Once you go past that point there is no law, quite literally that's the case.”
“Everyone sits around going, whose job is this?”
#jurisdiction#maritime-law#piracy#crime
✶Explainer
How Somali pirates hijacked ships with skiffs and grappling hooks
At the 2011 peak of Somali piracy there was an attack roughly every couple of days. Chellel describes the MO: a fast skiff carrying six or seven armed men would pull alongside a huge vessel, use grappling hooks to climb 30-40 feet up the side, seize the bridge, and steer the ship to Somali waters to be held for ransom.
- 2011 was the peak of Somali piracy in the Gulf of Aden
- Small skiffs carried six or seven armed men with grappling hooks
- Pirates climbed 30-40 feet up the hull to seize the bridge
- Ships were taken to Somali waters and held until a ransom was paid
“Captain Phillips is actually a great starting point for the way modern piracy works.”
“There was an attack on a ship once every couple of days back in this period. It was rampant.”
#piracy#somalia#gulf-of-aden#ransom
✶Explainer
Water hoses, barbed wire and a 'pirate scarecrow'
Unarmed merchant ships defend against pirates with speed, naval convoys, armed guard teams, and improvised deterrents. Chellel lists the Brillante Virtuoso's measures: high-pressure water hoses that can capsize small boats, barbed wire around the hull, and even a mannequin propped on the bridge to fake a watchman.
- Guns are legally and morally fraught on merchant ships, so most carry none
- Options: go fast, travel in naval convoys, or hire armed guard teams
- Powerful water hoses can capsize an attacking skiff
- The Brillante used barbed wire and a mannequin 'pirate scarecrow' on the bridge
“They even had like a mannequin dressed up in sailors' gear, propped up on the bridge to look like there was someone on watch.”
#ship-security#piracy#defense#deterrence
✶Explainer
Salvage crews: the ocean's emergency service that fights for a payout
Chellel explains marine salvage economics: crews roam looking for stricken ships and race to be first on scene, because under Lloyd's maritime rules a successful salvor can claim up to ~10% of the value saved. On a billion-dollar ship that's a huge payout, which is why the business is lucrative, dangerous and sometimes violently competitive.
- Salvage crews plug leaks, fight fires and rescue crews of stricken ships
- Successful salvage earns up to ~10% of the value saved
- On a big ship that can mean tens of millions of dollars
- Rival crews can clash — guns pointed, chains forcibly removed — over a prize
“Salvage crews are like the emergency service of the ocean.”
“If you manage to salvage a ship, you get anything up to sort of 10% of the value of what it's carrying.”
#salvage#maritime#incentives#lloyds
✶Explainer
Why Lloyd's of London quietly pays fraudulent claims
Chellel explains that fraud is effectively priced into the 500-year-old Lloyd's market. Because the shipping world is a single-ship-company web of shell entities, and fighting a claim means costly litigation and bad publicity, insurers often find it cheaper to pay suspicious claims and pass the cost to customers via higher premiums.
- Lloyd's is the 500-year-old market where big risks get insured
- Each ship is typically owned by its own single-purpose shell company
- Fighting fraud means expensive litigation and reputational risk
- It's often cheaper to pay ~1-in-50 dodgy claims and raise premiums than to fight
“It's actually in most cases a lot easier just to pay to make these problems go away, and then pass the cost on to the…”
#lloyds#insurance#fraud#incentives
✶Explainer
Why insurers fought this claim — the number got too big to ignore
The trigger for a real fight wasn't Mockett's murder but the size of the claim. The Greek owner claimed not just the ship's value but lost profits and interest, pushing the total toward $100 million. Insurers' own lawyers later admitted they'd have happily settled had the sum been smaller.
- The owner claimed ship value plus lost profits and interest
- The claim ballooned toward ~$100 million
- The sheer size, not the murder, is what made insurers fight
- Insurers' lawyers admitted they'd have settled a smaller sum
“Once this claim reached a certain size... they decided it was time to fight because they didn't want to just pay.”
#insurance#claim#lloyds#litigation