WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
INCOMING! FRONT DRIVER’s Last Port of Call — Gadani Beach Pakistan
byVanderleunonMarch 3, 2018
Shipbreaking: What I love best about this is the overwhelming inevitability once the ship comes into view. At Gadani Beach, where the pure products of the first world are reduced to rubble and rust by the third world. At Pakistan’s Gadani Beach, 40 kilometers west of Karachi City, where men with saws of fire come every day to do a job of work.
Supertanker FRONT DRIVER, built in 1991 by Hyundai Heavy Industries South Korea (and owned by Frontline Management of Norway) – Now at the end of it’s service life comes to Gadani beach of Pakistan, for decommissioning and breaking. All the steel (almost 90,000 tons of it) will now get recycled, and used within Pakistan.
6:18 Collision Alarm
7:15 FRONT DRIVER is now officially part of Pakistan’s territory.
11:57 Captain Siddique and his crew now cut their way out of the ship.
15:15 Ship’s condition after a few days. –[HT: Rob De Witt]
UPDATE:Look at it on google map, about 2 miles north of the Gaddani Boat Basin, right on the beach, if you zoom in close in “real” view, you’ll see a large jet in mid air with a strange colored apparition right next to it. Next to a community called Goth Abdullah. — ghostsniper
That stretch of beech is said to be one of the most polluted spots on earth. Like Chernobyl without the radiation.
Snakepit KansasMarch 4, 2018, 5:32 AM
Wow. Working in that environment with open toed sandals, no hearing protection and absolute minimal safety equipment.
ghostsniperMarch 4, 2018, 6:43 AM
Look at it on google map, about 2 miles north of the Gaddani Boat Basin, right on the beach, if you zoom in close in “real” view, you’ll see a large jet in mid air with a strange colored apparition right next to it. Next to a community called Goth Abdullah.
PunditarianMarch 4, 2018, 8:06 AM
Very sad to see a great ship, the product of so much knowledge and energy and effort, that has over years contributed so much to the world, while braving the seas through who knows what conditions, driven to destruction and dismemberment on what must be the ships’ equivalent of the Burning Gats. So must annihilation come to us all – though it be only the annihilation of form – the congealed starlight that is matter will continue in other entities.
BillHMarch 4, 2018, 8:24 AM
I flew around the ME/west Asia a lot in the ’50s-’60s. Many layovers in Karachi, Tehran, Dhahran, Beirut, Tripoli, and places in Turkey. The beach in that video is as clean and attractive as any place I ever saw, and a lot more interesting.
SkorpionMarch 5, 2018, 12:46 PM
I once heard someone say that one of the main differences between Asia and Africa, is that in the former, the West’s industrial junk gets efficiently and fully recycled and turned into new products, whereas in the latter, it just sits and rusts, only occasionally raided for the odd bit of precious metal-bearing circuitry.
Snakepit KansasMarch 5, 2018, 6:44 PM
I spent a bit of time in Africa and Asia. Most in the latter. Any kind of scrap metal was coveted in Asia. The pool boy in the Philippines asked if he could collect my empty aluminum San Mig beer cans from the trash. In the tourist area of Cu Chi, Vietnam in 2003 there was an old American armored personnel carrier at the site of the old battle ground. The area was full of bunkers, tunnels and old American equipment. Anything that could be unbolted from this old APC was long gone.
At the gun range I work at, we have a very large metal bin out back that we dump the backstop lead into. We dump it weekly but have had to start locking the bin up as some of the locals have come late at night to shovel out the lead to resell themselves.
If there is a market for scrap metal, the poor folks, regardless of location, will figure out how to leverage it.
PunditarianMarch 6, 2018, 8:13 AM
Somehow this reminds me of two movies from 1955, John Wayne in “The Sea Chase,” and Richard Attenborough in “The Ship that Died of Shame.”
Real World Address for Donations, Mash Notes and Hate Mail
Gerard Van der Leun
1692 MANGROVE AVE
APT 379
Chico, Ca 95926
Green Pants Interior by Klahn
Who Am I? by Carl Sandburg
My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading “Keep Off.”
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe.
Duty, Beauty, Liberty, Country, Honor, Family, Faith — Plus a few simple easy to follow rules for guys
Men saw the stars at the edge of the sea
They thought great thoughts about liberty
Poets wrote down words that did fit
Writers wrote books
Thinkers thought about it
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
Many’s the road I have walked upon
Many’s the hour between dusk and dawn
Many’s the time
Many’s the mile
I see it all now
Through the eyes of a child
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
And close your eyes
Leave it all for a while
Leave the world
And your worries behind
You will build on whatever is real
And wake up each day
To a new waking dream
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Change, change come over
Change come over
Talkin’ about a change
Change, change
Change come over, now
Change, change, change come over
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
Gerard Van der Leun
Comments on this entry are closed.
That definitely calls for the greatest (only?) song about ship-breaking,
Mark Knopfler’s ‘So Far from the Clyde’ :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BXiPzRCFJc
That stretch of beech is said to be one of the most polluted spots on earth. Like Chernobyl without the radiation.
Wow. Working in that environment with open toed sandals, no hearing protection and absolute minimal safety equipment.
Look at it on google map, about 2 miles north of the Gaddani Boat Basin, right on the beach, if you zoom in close in “real” view, you’ll see a large jet in mid air with a strange colored apparition right next to it. Next to a community called Goth Abdullah.
Very sad to see a great ship, the product of so much knowledge and energy and effort, that has over years contributed so much to the world, while braving the seas through who knows what conditions, driven to destruction and dismemberment on what must be the ships’ equivalent of the Burning Gats. So must annihilation come to us all – though it be only the annihilation of form – the congealed starlight that is matter will continue in other entities.
I flew around the ME/west Asia a lot in the ’50s-’60s. Many layovers in Karachi, Tehran, Dhahran, Beirut, Tripoli, and places in Turkey. The beach in that video is as clean and attractive as any place I ever saw, and a lot more interesting.
I once heard someone say that one of the main differences between Asia and Africa, is that in the former, the West’s industrial junk gets efficiently and fully recycled and turned into new products, whereas in the latter, it just sits and rusts, only occasionally raided for the odd bit of precious metal-bearing circuitry.
I spent a bit of time in Africa and Asia. Most in the latter. Any kind of scrap metal was coveted in Asia. The pool boy in the Philippines asked if he could collect my empty aluminum San Mig beer cans from the trash. In the tourist area of Cu Chi, Vietnam in 2003 there was an old American armored personnel carrier at the site of the old battle ground. The area was full of bunkers, tunnels and old American equipment. Anything that could be unbolted from this old APC was long gone.
At the gun range I work at, we have a very large metal bin out back that we dump the backstop lead into. We dump it weekly but have had to start locking the bin up as some of the locals have come late at night to shovel out the lead to resell themselves.
If there is a market for scrap metal, the poor folks, regardless of location, will figure out how to leverage it.
Somehow this reminds me of two movies from 1955, John Wayne in “The Sea Chase,” and Richard Attenborough in “The Ship that Died of Shame.”