If you have a few spare minutes and an attention span, Wired have a cool (couple months old) story called High Tech Cowboys of the Dead Seas: The Race to Save the Cougar Ace.

It's basically a story of this hotshot salvage company and how they saved this massive ship with $100 million worth of cargo from sinking.

I read it a week or so ago and meant to post about it then but some other thing just reminded me of it - it's a good read and makes you wish you were as awesome as these dudes.

Was one of the few things I've read on the internet from start to finish without getting bored.

I believe it was linked off OCAU's front page a couple of months ago ;)

all that and they scrapped the cars anyway? what a waste

Yeah wow that's tragic

Interesting read

Cool story, hansel.

thats a rad story! Those guys are 10x more bad ass than I will ever be.

they couldnt have just sold the cars to wreckers, removed the plates so they couldnt be registered etc.

Seems so stupid to just scrape them.

Or at least had some awesome smashup derby.

interesting story

wasnt fussed on the writing though

they couldnt have just sold the cars to wreckers,

And where do you think those spare parts have ended up?
In their cars.

Sounds like something out of a Matthew Reilly book

indeed reads this a few months ago, was good read start to finish, which is weird for internet article =]

f*** that was a cool read

Yeah that was really interesting.

Seems like a type of action movie we havent seen yet.

Man all those guys looked so bad ass.

I reckon there will be a movie about this type of stuff. Bruce Willis will be the lead and it will start off in the middle of some type of rescue with fire and s*** everywhere. Willis yells out to some guy to pull back, but he doesn't and a massive fireball engulfs the dude. Fast forward a few months and Willis is now retired and running a small fishing charter operation. He gets a call from an old pal because a ship is sinking and the oil it's carrying is about to spill at any moment.

He finally agrees after moping around for a day saying it's not his problem anymore but his girlfriend convinces him to go because he is the best there is and it's in his blood. When he lands and gets outta the chopper at the landing zone 100 nautical miles from the ship he meets back up with his old team. He also notices there's a new young addition to their team who is reckless and isn't a team player. Ashton Kutcher will most probably be playing this role.

Willis tells Kutcher straight away he doesn't like his attitude and to stay the hell away from him. The team get geared up and they all cram in to the chopper and fly out to the sinking ship. Once there they are greeted by wild weather with huge waves crashing up against the ship and strong wind and rain hammering down. "I don't like the look of this one bit", says Vinny Jones' character which is rather humorous because he's meant to be the bad-ass outta all of them.

Once inside the ship Ashton's character almost kills a couple of the guys by not following rules and is severely yelled at by Bruce's character. Deep inside the ship Willis gets trapped under some heavy equipment which has fallen due to the ship listing even further to the side. He yells at Ashton to leave him there and save himself but being the stubborn young hot shot that he is, he ignores Willis and stays and manages to get him to safety before he drowns.

With that near death experience the team pull together and pump all the water out of the ship getting it back to normal and get a heroes welcome back at port with planes doing flybys and tugboats spraying water up into the air.

The end!

haha rev, awesome story, except there's no way anyone would believe Kutcher saving Willis, it'd just look silly on the screen. How about, everyone's about to die because the ship is about to sink - unless one of them remains behind to manually operate the pumps while the others get to safety.

what would be awesome is a documentary like the ice truckers / tuna wranglers etc

I was thinking of that trog but it's too similar to Armageddon. Although if Ashton stays behind and dies then I suppose it would be ok.

haha I thought the whole thing was an Armageddon parody

i'm working my way through it, it's pretty entertaining and informative.

Great read, I'd like an alternate ending though where everything doesn't get destroyed

Agreed Saint

Cliffnotes:
Ship is on its side. A few men get sent in to try and save it. One guy dies. The cars on it all get scrapped anyway. Waste of a human life, and obviously a skilled one at that.

lol

and told him that no ship was worth "even the tip of your pinky."
Habib smiled. Insurance lawyers have calculated the value of a pinky — $14,000, tops — and that's far less than the value of a modern commercial vessel.

reso showed me this a while ago, excellent read !

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120942873506551291.html?mod=blog
http://jalopnik.com/385441/cougar-ace-mazdas-face-the-crusher-we-cry

Two good follow-up links.

You idiot Mr Retardware. The ship is worth more than all the shipement combined.

You idiot Mr Retardware. The ship is worth more than all the shipement combined.

are you sure? the cargo was worth estimated $100 million+

are you sure? the cargo was worth estimated $100 million+

And having an item that can move said cargo 1000-10000 times in its useful life is better then not having said item at all...

I would have thought though, when you buy something like a ship, you're buying the ship for it's value as a ship - not for the value of it for all the work it might do over its lifecycle. Maybe ships are different though

Well boxhead, i guess next time my car insurance comes up for renewal i'll mention how i expect to move my wallet containing $200 365 times this year, i should b able to insure the car for about $70000 using your logic.

Surely its similar for any significant asset in a company?? If you've got a thing (car, plane, trolley or whatever) that can 'earn' you 8million in money above its cost over its life..

Then the thing essentially becomes 'worth' that amount of money to your company.. You might need to carry out repairs, improve bits and pieces on the thing but aslong as you're a healthy distance from that 8 million figure then you're well served by the thing..

Its a long time since i've had to look at 'asset worth' to a company either monetry or otherwise.. The last time i did it was about 5 years ago in a hospital operating room whereby we had to justify a new batch of operating theatres and the equipment to run them.. The stuff was ridicously expensive but had a high earning capacity for the hospital.. eg 1 room, 20 patients a day, 5000 per operation at minimum plus staying on a ward etc etc..

/edit

Well boxhead, i guess next time my car insurance comes up for renewal i'll mention how i expect to move my wallet containing $200 365 times this year, i should b able to insure the car for about $70000 using your logic.

Lol.. 100mill of cars is vastly different dude.. if they're unable to be moved, or as the article said, unsafe to use, then they're 'worth' f*** all... The ship allows them to be moved.. which gives them value.. There is f*** all point in having something that you can sell for X dollars if you have no way at all to get it to the people who will buy it from you

last edited by Boxhead at 23:32:03 23/May/08

Wouldn't you then insure it for the value of the ship + lost earnings for the time it takes to replace it (because the new ship probably takes a while to build), not for its possible lifetime earnings. That's probably the same for any decent business insurance, like if your shop burnt down you'd have income protection as well as insurance for the building and stock etc.

last edited by Bah at 23:47:43 23/May/08

"Holy f***," Trepte mutters.

sums it up.