Sunk in an irony storm
OK, so cruise ships aren't exactly the day-to-day commuter stuff we usually do, but this is just too good to leave alone.
Here's some background. A very old American maritime law states that a foreign ship cannot visit two American ports in a row. This is bad for cruise lines that visit Hawaii, since there really aren't any American cruise ship builders anymore and any foreign jaunt between stops in Hawaii would be a 2,000-mile detour.
Enter Sen. Trent Lott (R), who secured some massive pork to finance some shipbuilding in his home state. Despite all the funding, the project failed miserably and the company went under. However, even more pork and law-tweaking allowed the ships' few completed parts to be assembled and completed in Germany while the ship remained "American-made."
From the St. Petersburg Times:
"Although the law regulating domestic shipping is more than eight decades old, Congress had no trouble creating a loophole for a generous political benefactor. The deal started with a failed, $180-million scheme to build ships in Mississippi at taxpayer expense and ended with a sweetheart deal for Norwegian Cruise Line, whose corporate offices are in Hong Kong and Malaysia, the New York Times reported.
[Norwegian Cruise Lines] was allowed to buy the unfinished pieces of the two Mississippi ships for $24-million, finish building them in Germany and then put American flags on those and an existing ship, whose name will be changed from Norwegian Sky to Pride of Aloha."
What a debacle! But it gets better. And not 'better' as in 'far worse,' as is usually the case with stuff like this, but 'better' as 'concluding with a sense of rough justice.'
The ship sank in Germany.
Serves you right, Trent.
Post Author:
rj3 | 8:51 AM |
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The law is called 'cabotage,' and it states that a foreign ship can't carry passengers from one American port to another without making a stop in a third country. Because of this, most Hawaii cruises are (expensive) 11-day affairs, consisting of 7 days dicking around the islands with a 4-day sail to Ensenada, Mexico at either the beginning or the end. Norwegian starts and ends in Honolulu, but somehow gets around cabotage by sailing 2,000 miles south to Fanning Island, Kiribati in the middle. Those Mississippi ships were actually commissioned by an outfit called American Hawaii Cruises, which ran 7-day Hawaii trips on US-flagged ships. They couldn't survive the post-9/11 downturn in tourism, and folded, leaving those two ships orphaned until Trent Lott saved the day (with an awful lot of help from NCL's lobby department). Norwegian is promoting the hell out of the two new boats within the travel industry, and despite the lack of outside advertising, word seems to be getting out quite well.
Are you sure we're talking about the same boats here? The ones that were stranded in Pascagoula, Miss. weren't even complete when congress allowed them to be completed in Germany. I'm pretty sure the line had two very old boats it was doing the rounds in Hawaii with, but they were going to retire them when the new ships are finished.
Exactly; Am.Hawaii had the two clapped-out ships that were due to be replaced with the new Pascagoula ships. When Am.Hawaii foundered, the ships were stranded and Norwegian's wet dream happened.
