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Comment by mgolawala | Hacker News Reader

Yeah that is the part I do not understand.

Isn't there a law at sea where if you find an abandoned ship, it is basically yours? Perhaps this law doesn't apply in Egyptian national waters?

If he is the legal guardian of the ship, why wouldn't he be able to just sell it for profit and move on? Was it just that there would be no buyer for it, even to scrap it? Or could there have been fines/liens on that ship such that no one would want to buy it? If that is the case it seems odd that he couldn't himself abandon the ship to the lien holders.

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International salvage law is complex, but essentially no. The ship is stills owned.by someone even when at the bottom of the sea and if you take anything from the ship without permission that is theft.

Salvagers work on contract with the owners in most cases. When they don't there are generally big lawsuits because they are entitled for compensation for their work, but if they don't give anything brought up back the the owners they are in possession of stolen property, and the law around this is complex.

If the vessel is more than 1000 years old we probably can't trace an onwer anymore and you can get by with calling it abandoned in some cases. Though even here the country who's waters it is in might consider the wreck a treasure.

He is the guard, not the owner. As such he can't sell it. The owners are probably in complex bankruptcy court and the lien holders will eventually get to figure out what to do with it, but that will take years to resolve. Indeed the expense of resolving this might be more than the ship is worth so nobody actually wants to resolve it.

The company also owes him a salary, he is in possession of company property, selling said property to recuperate lost salary seems reasonable.

I'm no lawyer (so don't try this at home), and I bet you'd need to find a good lawyer to get a with a trick like that :)

But as a creditor in possession of property owned by the debitor, selling said property to recuperate losses doesn't seem entirely unreasonable.

Certainly, not if debitor does not take action recover possession of the property, etc.

Even if he got into trouble after selling the ship, I would hope a jury would side the person being held for "ransom by said property".

But yes, between Egyptian and Syrian courts, I suppose there is a serious risk you'll get squashed either way. Because we can't have sailors selling their ships :)

Very off topic, but does this mean that wrecks from warships lost during, say, WWII are still owned by their respective navies?

Depends. If the Navy lost then the winner might own them. Reciently the remains of WWI ships that Germany scuttled so they couldn't be captured, went on eBay (the ships were intured in an English harbor at the time). They are considered a public attraction, so the owner won't be allowed to do anything other than grant permission to visiting divers.

It's not abandoned. The government assigned this guy as the caretaker of the property.

That’s slavery

They may have been paying him.

(it would still be slavery, however, you have a right to quit your job).

He was unpaid and the Egyptian courts won't let him leave.

Find a 500 year d ship full of gold and everyone owns it. Even the original insurance company.

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