Maritime dirty laundry: the scandal of UK ships scrapped on Indian beaches
According to UK law it is illegal to send defunct ships abroad, but months after being sold at auction as seaworthy vessels, two British ships have ended up on an Indian beach where they are being broken up and sold for scrap at double their selling price.
The BBC reports that two UK-registered cruise ships have been sold at auction and are now being broken up for scrap, despite UK law prohibiting the export of vessels that are at the end of their operational life.
The vessels were sold on the understanding that they would continue to operate, but an investigation by the BBC’s File on 4 programme found that they and at least 13 other vessels linked to the UK, had arrived at scrapping sites on the beaches of Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh since the start of 2020.
The Marco Polo and the Magellan were sold at auction in November after their owners went into administration and are now lying on a beach at Alang in India. The muddy foreshore, just up the coast from Mumbai, has been described as the world’s largest ship graveyard.
The Marco Polo’s owners, Highseas Ltd., bought the ship for £2m and said the vessel was released from UK waters on the understanding that it would be used for “further trading”, but two months after taking ownership of the former ocean liner, Highseas sold the vessel as scrap for £4m.
HighSeas Ltd director, Rishi Arggawal, said it was always their intention the Marco Polo would be sold to new owners for use as a floating hotel, “but regrettably, the intended buyers in Dubai refused to take delivery.”
