A 173-year-old law for wooden ships could complicate rebuilding in Baltimore

(from the wiki page)

> at the time, shipowners were subject to loss from events beyond their control such as storms and pirates, so the Act was designed to limit the shipowners' liability to the value of the vessel.

But it's predicated on "the owner can prove it lacked knowledge of the problem beforehand". Losing power a few times before the impact doesn't bode well there.

It seems like the materials with which a ship is made is irrelevant to this law, and perhaps even to its intent. The law was passed as a diuretic for the maritime shipping industry, lowering the risk in order to spur economic activity. That remains true, even for steel ships.

A pre-Civil-War law for maritime accidents is still current, and that's now a gigantic and obvious problem.

The U.S. Capital, where Congress originally made that law, and still makes the laws, is 40 miles away by road.

Any bets on Congress both being competent enough to fix their law, and giving a sh*t enough to actually do that?

How is this a complication? The Federal government has no issue spending billions and billions of future tax payers taxes.