Training Ship Libertad Detained in Ghana

[Gringoboy]

Agreed, it's the passengers and crew suffering.
Wondering what the govt is going to do about this.
Back to boats; some serious tides around West Wales Phil, as you know.
Did one of my RYA exams around Skomer in some dirty weather.
A little hairy to say the least

 

[dennisr]

Libertad:

The thing I do not quite understand is the ship has been detained and ordered not to leave port until a court hearing. Why would the crew abandon the ship before a ruling? One thing to be detained, quite another to abandon the thing.

 

[cbonanni]

Gringoboy...btw:
I have my USCG 200 ton license with Sail Endorsement and plan to do my YachtMaster Offshore rating in South Africa next Year.

Semana Buenos Aires is being raced this weekend at Yacht Club Argentina , at Darsena Norte. Over 1000 sailors and 600 boats. A good friend is regatta chairman. Too bad the weather is not cooperating.

This mess with the Libertad is purely a publicity grab , and money extortion by Ghana. Agree they should be treating the cadets better.

 

[ElQueso]

Libertad:

The thing I do not quite understand is the ship has been detained and ordered not to leave port until a court hearing. Why would the crew abandon the ship before a ruling? One thing to be detained, quite another to abandon the thing.

I didn't go back and reread the article(s) but if I remember correctly they were ordered to vacate the ship by the Ghana court in addition to the ship being held.

 

[Matt84]

Lol, best 419 ever!
You don't wanna dock in Ghana!

 

[PhilinBSAS]

I dont know how to cross reference from another thread tucked away on here so apologies for repeating it in part but struck me as being relevant!

http://baexpats.org/world-politics/24476-argentine-strange-poltics-summerised-comment-boat-seizure-article.html#post186279

Very interesting news combinator - thanks Jago for posting with link

I've just read this which others may be interested to see so I've cutn pasted!.

Aside: There seems to be a strange (one-way) attraction between creditors and sailing ships these days. Another example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedov

"Sedov has regularly been targeted by unpaid creditors of the Russian Federation such as Nissim Gaon (of now defunct Swiss group NOGA, an anagram of Gaon) and also by French holders of defaulted Russian bonds; in 2002 Sedov was forced to precipitously and unexpectedly leave Marseilles in the dead of night[1] to avoid being served a writ by AFPER (French association of holders of Russian Empire bonds) the following morning.

For over a year French holders of defaulted Russian bonds have been warning they were going to reorganize and export their claim to Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions, more friendly to private citizens than the French."

reply

100k 3 days ago | link

I was curious AFBER because of the Russian Empire thing. It is indeed the association of holders of Tsarist Russian bonds. They are trying to get paid back two successor governments and 100 years later.

taken off http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4611825

Maybe Libertad is going to stay in Ghana for a while yet!

Ah it seems to have done it for me - thats clever (or Im just stupid)!!

 

[azerty]

I read it, was going to post on it but didn't. I don't believe anyone else has posted on it either.

It is interesting really.

Does this not amount to piracy? Or is this a completely legal action? I don't know all the details of the court ruling they seem to be referring to.

It seems logical to confiscate property belonging to people who owe you money...doing that to a whole country...now I've never heard that before.

Swiss clercs sequestrated some russian superfighter jets at Le Bourget in Paris a few years ago.

 

[dennisr]

And the hits keep coming. Chile to transport Libertad cadets. Argentina afraid to send one of their own aircraft: http://www.ambito.com/noticia.asp?id=659467

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ambito.com%2F