Posted on 11/19/2021 3:02:10 PM PST by DUMBGRUNT
“Don’t worry,” he typed in what would be a final email to his wife in April. “Everything will be fine.”
Last month, the ship, by then floating off the United Arab Emirates, sent what had become a familiar plea. Captain Sandu was dead and his body was in the ship’s walk-in freezer. For six months, it had traveled thousands of miles lying near the crew’s meat and vegetables. They needed to get him back to Romania.
...There currently are four seafarers’ bodies stuck aboard cargo ships, the International Maritime Organization says—as well as 36 urgent cases involving medical or humanitarian emergencies.
... The crew of one vessel declared force majeure, the “act of God” clause, which allowed them to sail more than 6,000 miles from Indonesia to Italy to return a dead captain.
The shipowner reached out to the Sandus with a counterproposal, which wasn’t acceptable to the family. The body of the captain would be cremated, or failing that, thrown into the sea.
Her husband’s story had reached the national news. Prime Minister Florin Citu, facing reporters who demanded to know how the government would stop the captain from being cast into the sea, said he would call another minister to make sure it didn’t happen.
Finally, in late September, the harbor master at the United Arab Emirates port of Fujairah agreed to send a team aboard, test Capt. Sandu’s long-frozen body and allow his repatriation in a zinc coffin.
The test concluded cardiac arrest was the most likely, but not certain, cause of death.
It was the 13th country the Vantage Wave petitioned. All had refused to receive the body.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Yo Wedding-Guest! This is a good read... Full TXT: https://archive.vn/JGWc8
The Soylent Green Deal will take care of such problems in the future.
He got his limit on the albatrosses, I think.
In olden days, before electricity or refrigeration, burial at sea was a perfectly acceptable thing to do with dead ship’s crew.
The ports will refuse to receive the dead body. Why?
Superstition? afraid of contamination? Transport of remains would throw them too far off schedule?
Well, if he comes alive in seven years they can call him The Flying Romanian...
“The ports will refuse to receive the dead body. Why?”
A whole lot of paperwork is the most likely truth.
It was acceptable in WWII!
Personally I served in Navy ships. Burial at sea is ok to me. Maybe hard on the family. But men “Go down to the sea in ships”. Sometimes we don’t come home, the ships go down too. Dead is dead.
What was his name, Captain Crunch?
“Too far off schedule”
Yet, “one vessel declared force majeure, the “act of God” clause, which allowed them to sail more than 6,000 miles from Indonesia to Italy to return a dead captain.” Couldn’t they have transported him in a coffin on a commercial airliner? I’m presuming Italy wasn’t their destination and they made a side trip to deliver his body. Imagine the cost!
—”It was acceptable in WWII!”
My career Navy father was returned to the Pacific, at age 91 by the United States Navy.
A survivor of the Yorktown at Midway.
After the 2nd refusal the crew should have sailed to Italy
—”He got his limit on the albatrosses, I think.”
When is opening day?
“In the late nineteenth century, hunters exploited Laysan albatross breeding colonies from Japan eastward across the Pacific. The birds’ dense down became pillow stuffing and wing plumes adorned women’s hats. Albatross eggs provided albumen for a photographic printing process. In 1909, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt protected the seabirds by creating a preserve of the western Hawaiian Islands.”
God Bless him, you, and your family. Yorktown stood tall at the Coral Sea and at Midway. We lost Lexington at the Coral Sea. All were brave men going in harms way. We have kids out there now pulling the same duty. More people need to understand “God, Country, Family, it’s why we fight”. Stay safe. Happy Thanksgiving.
In the early 2000’s there was a backlog of former Sailors awaiting burial at sea. Every time we left San Diego - even for a couple of days - we had a ceremony. I’ve seen my share of ‘Burials Gone Wrong’.
The best was on a Carrier and the steel coffin’s holes were too small - the USMC Honor Guard switched to live rounds to make it sink.
Maybe scrapping a shipmate off a bulkhead and shoving him in a body bag with a steam vale sinks better, the ashes blowing off the burning topside take care of themselves.
Sorry “valve”.
Bodies in the freezer could come in handy if you’re stuck in a cargo ship off California for six months.
Unhand me, gray beard loon!
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