

Revealed: The ghost fleet of the recession - cwan
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1212013/Revealed-The-ghost-fleet-recession.html

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sanj
It is time for Startup School to take to the ocean.

I think we should charter one of these vessels and sale around the South
Pacific while building our companies.

We could fit 100 companies on board, charge each $100/day and turn a profit:

"You may wish to know this because, if ever you had an irrational desire to
charter one, now would be the time. This time last year, an Aframax tanker
capable of carrying 80,000 tons of cargo would cost £31,000 a day ($50,000).
Now it is about £3,400 ($5,500)."

Anyone want on board?

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hughprime
Wow, $5500 a night is probably cheaper than a top stateroom on the Queen Mary
2, and a helluva lot bigger. On the downside, it probably doesn't include fuel
or docking fees.

It would make an excellent lair for a supervillain, though.

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pyre
Being a supervillain with a 'landlord' that you are renting you lair from is
would be the equivalent of Bill Gates being a billionaire living in his
mother's basement.

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hughprime
I was kinda assuming you'd pay the first month's rent while you got all your
stuff moved in, then steal it and sail the seas, hijacking nuclear submarines.

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sp332
Looks like the beginnings of Rife's Raft from Snow Crash.

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anigbrowl
Google filed a patent for offshore data centers last year...
[http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2008/09/06/googl...](http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2008/09/06/google-
planning-offshore-data-barges/)

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alexandros
anyone know why there is 'loading' activity whenever I select text on the
page? I noticed the same effect on yesterday's esquire articles as well.

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Danny72
They're probably using the same text highlighting code as esquire.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/98o77/go_to_esqu...](http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/98o77/go_to_esquirecom_highlight_any_text_the_website/c0bte3m)

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nobody_nowhere
Spot the glaring fact-checking failure in this article...

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hughprime
How about you just point it out to save everybody some time?

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anigbrowl
There is no big secret about it, which is the sort of reason the Daily Mail is
Fail. It's just not talked about much outside of the business pages - there's
no conspiracy to kept the fact of the anchored fleet covered up.

There are two reasons for it to be there: one is that a glut in cargo ship
availability (due to the long order cycle) has coincided with the recession,
so that the expected growth in shipping has stalled. Hence the large number.
As for the location outside Singapore, it's handily just north of the equator
and so not subject to tropical storms and weather patterns, meaning it's the
handiest place is Asia to park a ship without paying port fees.

Sure, it's interesting that there's so much unused capacity gathered in one
place, but 'secret'? I think not.

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miratom
The daily mail is a sensationalist tabloid rag. Most of the article is
probably BS.

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sharpn
I agree the mail is terrible, and as other comments have said it's no secret
(try googling 'dry baltic index' for business news stories on the topic). But
besides that, this article is far above the mail's usual standard.

