Dead in the Water: Murder and Fraud in the World's Most Secretive Industry

by Matthew Campbell

While salvage is more regulated today, it’s still a game played only by the toughest, most aggressive seafarers. For obvious reasons, speed is critical. Once they arrive, salvors can go to extreme lengths to secure their possession of a vessel, occasionally even ramming another company’s tug to force it to back off. And while it is expressly forbidden under Lloyd’s regulations, it’s an open secret that some salvors, in exchange for receiving a contract or being tipped off about an accident before competitors hear of it, kick back part of their compensation to shipowners. The monetary rewards can be enormous. The basic principle of salvage, rendered in bold capitals on every Lloyd’s Open Form, is: “NO CURE—NO PAY.” Under the industry’s traditional rules, a salvor who fails to save a ship or cargo gets nothing—instead, as a scholar of the industry once described it, “the sea wins.” (More recent changes provide for payment for preventing environmental consequences in some cases, even if a salvage fails in other respects.) A salvor who succeeds, by contrast, is entitled to a substantial proportion of the value he protects, to be shared out among his crew. In the case of a fully loaded tanker or similarly important asset, that may tally to tens of millions of dollars, and the best in the business can afford to live in rock-star luxury, at least for a time.