Revealed: The ghost fleet of the recession anchored just east of Singapore

The biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history lies at anchor east of Singapore. Never before photographed, it is bigger than the U.S. and British navies combined but has no crew, no cargo and no destination - and is why your Christmas stocking may be on the light side this year

(snip)

Here, on a sleepy stretch of shoreline at the far end of Asia, is surely the biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history. Their numbers are equivalent to the entire British and American navies combined; their tonnage is far greater. Container ships, bulk carriers, oil tankers - all should be steaming fully laden between China, Britain, Europe and the US, stocking camera shops, PC Worlds and Argos depots ahead of the retail pandemonium of 2009. But their water has been stolen.

They are a powerful and tangible representation of the hurricanes that have been wrought by the global economic crisis; an iron curtain drawn along the coastline of the southern edge of Malaysia's rural Johor state, 50 miles east of Singapore harbour.

It is so far off the beaten track that nobody ever really comes close, which is why these ships are here. The world's ship owners and government economists would prefer you not to see this symbol of the depths of the plague still crippling the world's economies.

So they have been quietly retired to this equatorial backwater, to be maintained only by a handful of bored sailors. The skeleton crews are left alone to fend off the ever-present threats of piracy and collisions in the congested waters as the hulls gather rust and seaweed at what should be their busiest time of year.

Local fisherman Ah Wat, 42, who for more than 20 years has made a living fishing for prawns from his home in Sungai Rengit, says: 'Before, there was nothing out there - just sea. Then the big ships just suddenly came one day, and every day there are more of them.

'Some of them stay for a few weeks and then go away. But most of them just stay. You used to look Christmas from here straight over to Indonesia and see nothing but a few passing boats. Now you can no longer see the horizon.'

The size of the idle fleet becomes more palpable when the ships' lights are switched on after sunset. From the small fishing villages that dot the coastline, a seemingly endless blaze of light stretches from one end of the horizon to another. Standing in the darkness among the palm trees and bamboo huts, as calls to prayer ring out from mosques further inland, is a surreal and strangely disorientating experience. It makes you feel as if you are adrift on a dark sea, staring at a city of light.

Ah Wat says: 'We don't understand why they are here. There are so many ships but no one seems to be on board. When we sail past them in our fishing boats we never see anyone. They are like real ghost ships and some people are scared of them. They believe they may bring a curse with them and that there may be bad spirits on the ships.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1212013/Revealed-The-ghost-fleet-recession-anchored-just-east-Singapore.html#ixzz0S5eoFRPd

I clicked on your post by accident but I'm glad I did. This really brings stark reality into focus.

Or for any other occasion.

Vote with your pocketbook, mom always said.

What will it be next year?

I don't know about the idled ships, but I know the containers are very valuable on land for a whole host of projects.

It is the I-5 of the sea. The amount if ships in the picture is a fraction of what passes through in a day. And people wonder were all the trash in the middle of the ocean came from.

on DU. Maybe it needs a snappier headline.

When it was posted before it got a lot of responses...so it could be folks saw the other post and didn't feel they needed to respond.

:hi:

are anchored there, full of sweet light Saudi crude, waiting for the price of oil to rise again.

The point of the article is that the ships are empty and idle. There is no cargo for them. I've known about this for some time, but it's the first time that I've seen photos. The shipping lines, formerly a monolithic cartel, are now hemorrhaging cash. The pushback from manufacturers and importers has been huge--forcing rates through the floor.

more people should know about this, instead of being spoon fed the malarkey from the G-20 that the world economy is correcting itself.

nt

Sorry, not impressed from the photo, which in no way provides proof to the degree described in the article....

I can understand it happens...just that the writing is sensationalist, and the photo doesn't support it.....

The Baltic Dry Index, which measures the (global) shipping rates for dry goods (ie excluding things like oil which have specialised tankers), crashed from 11,793 in May 08 to just 663 by the end of November 08. It managed to recover to 4,291 in May 09, but has since dropped back to 2,163.

http://stockcharts.com/charts/gallery.html?$BDI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Dry_Index

That seems to say there are still a lot more ships around that cargo for them. But "why your Christmas stocking may be on the light side this year" is silly; the Christmas stocking will be as full as the person who buys it wants to make it. If anything, with shipping rates so low, the prices of imported goods are down a bit - if you have the money, you can buy just as much as before. Everyone wants to sell stuff still.

Thanks for the thread, Lorien.

The largest constriction rate since the Great Depression.