Wreck removal
The owner's obligation to remove a sunken ship, whose cost bears no relation to the vessel's value and depends above all on where it lies.
January 13, 2012: the Costa Concordia runs aground off the island of Giglio, and it takes until July 2014 to right it, refloat it and tow it away. When a ship sinks, the coastal state may require its owner to remove the wreck if it endangers navigation or the environment. The cost of the operation bears no relation to the value of the ship, and that is the decisive feature of this exposure. It depends on depth, exposure to swell, proximity to an inhabited coast and how protected the site is environmentally. A low-value vessel stranded in the wrong place can thus produce a loss out of all proportion to its insured hull value. The Nairobi international convention harmonized the regime. It imposes strict liability on the registered owner, compulsory insurance evidenced by a certificate, and direct action against the insurer; for the victim, that last point changes everything. The cover is carried by protection and indemnity clubs, not by the hull policy. The largest refloating operations rank among the most expensive marine losses ever settled.
The cruise ship Costa Concordia ran aground on January 13, 2012 off Giglio; it was righted then towed away in July 2014. Its refloating and subsequent scrapping were the most expensive wreck removal ever undertaken. The Nairobi International Convention on the Removal of Wrecks entered into force on April 14, 2015.
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