Interesting maritime evolution

[SheetWise]

I received an email today that I found interesting. I want to share it, so I downloaded it to my server. I'm interested in whether these are abandoned vessels or shipwrecks.

I am not interested in any comments that include anthropogenic global blah blah blah ...

The original email read ...

The Aral Sea was once the world's fourth-largest saline body of water. It has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s, after the rivers that fed it were diverted by Soviet Union irrigation projects. And now it's almost gone leaving a desert full of old shipwrecks.

[michael pierzga]

The Aral Sea, one of mans greatest self inflicted enviromental disasters.


http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2007/0...ount-the-cost/


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/678898.stm

[SheetWise]

I am not interested in any comments that include anthropogenic global blah blah blah ...

Like the following ...

Originally Posted by michael pierzga

The Aral Sea, one of mans greatest self inflicted enviromental [sic] disasters.

Any body that can fog a mirror should understand that when man builds a dam or diverts water for agriculture that there will be downstream effects. If you want to argue that the land which was immersed with water has less value than the land which was deprived of water, it would be an interesting economic theory. You write it, I'll read it.

OP: I'm interested in whether these are abandoned vessels or shipwrecks.

I'm fairly certain that those lined up on what appears to be a former shoreline are not wrecks. I'm wondering why the vessels weren't moved, relocated, or otherwise kept afloat. Certainly there was advance knowledge of the receding shoreline.

[Tim B]

I guess they were at the end of their life at the time. It's a lot easier to leave it beached than to tow it and cut it up for scrap.

On the anthropomorphic line... "Like giant eggshells" - Zaphod Beeblebrox - Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

Tim B.

[michael pierzga]

The vessels had no purpose...no water and no fish.

[Lister]

These ship have fantastic shape. I think they are gorgeous.
sad they are without water, but it is exactly the kind of shape I love.
look at these counter stern, these high bulwark, the design of the superstructures.
Thank you for posting these pictures.
Lister

[hoytedow]

Abandoned, definitely. Main tributary of Aral Sea was diverted by the Soviets decades ago.

[PAR]

I would suggest they are both abandoned and wrecked.

Michael is only working with what he has Sheet . . .

[SheetWise]

Originally Posted by PAR

I would suggest they are both abandoned and wrecked.

I agree. The back story would be why they haven't been salvaged in an area as poor as this. Must do more research ...

[PAR]

I would also suggest it's a age dependent observation, possably application specific as well.

Were they abandoned when they first rested on their keels or just hoping for the water to return? Where they wrecked as a result of repeated pounding as the water took weeks to finally leave or from the ravages of no maintenance?

Considering the general area they're in, it would cost a small fortune to drag out a set of tanks, to cut those babies up, let alone cart the pieces off for salvage. It may be just as simple as logistics.

[gonzo]

You could load the scrap on those camels.

[Hussong]

Originally Posted by PAR

Michael is only working with what he has Sheet . . .

PAR, why do you find it necessary to make denigrating comments such as this?

[BATAAN]

These ships were left at the ever shrinking shoreline as the sea dried up. Soviet history is full of bad ideas that left enormous resources abandoned when plans changed or unplanned events happened. Steel scrap prices don't cover the cost of cutting these boats up and transport of the material so of course it doesn't get done.

[FMS]

Selling your boat for scrap is a hard pill to swallow. Maybe there is a lesson here. I have some 2-stroke outboards in the garage I should have sold 10 years ago but I didn't want to take the loss Now I can kiss thousands of dollars good bye as they've sat so long

Even here in the USA where fishing has dried up it left dozens of boats in limbo for decades. Mostly they looked like boats that needed work, not the best of the fleet yet too good for their owners to scrap to get a fraction of what they had in. Until they sat and finally sank at the dock or rusted up and the land they were sat on sold years later.

[PAR]

Hussong, I pick on Michael, usually for what he has to say and generally have enjoyed watching his inability to explain his positions with rational thought, lots of emotion, but little rational discourse.

Sheet made it clear what he didn't want this thread to include, yet Michael's very first comment (his second wasn't much better) included the very "anthropogenic" observation that SheetWise hoped to avoid. Maybe he should have run "anthropogenic" through an on line dictionary, so he would have a better understanding of it's meaning.

As a rule I don't pick on people here and generally expect my posts are well received. Admittedly, I do pick on Michael occasionally, but only while he's chewing on his own shoelaces.