Post card from india: Death rites

[Doc Vernon]

Attachment 24046

They come down from the nearby hillsto demolish ships -- and earn $1-2 a day. Alang in India is the busiestscrap yard for ships, old and these days some not so old, anywhere. China, Pakistan & Turkey also have a piece of this business.

But India is crammed -- over 400ships just last year. Small teams of Indian scrap merchants, often insuits & ties and wearing gold watches & toting leather cases, travel all over the world and negotiate the purchase of unwanted ships. And these days, with vast changes in international shipping, ships of ten andfifteen years are being decommissioned and then broken-up.

Pricing: A medium-sized cruiseship might go for $5 million, but then the scrap metal/recycling marketfluctuates.

The ships are deliberately run ontothe beaches, secured and then invaded by armies of torch and ax and hammerwielding workers. These days, a good-sized, say 50,000-ton container shipcan be gone in three months.

[Doc Vernon]

Indeed Chris she even is older than was the Dunnottar thanks did not know that!
Cheers

[happy daze john in oz]

Those rusty hulks go to make razor blades!.

Now I know why I use an electric shaver.