Buy your own plane ticket home from Rotterdam. A hundred other young men from the shantytowns of Manila will line up to take your place. Expect little or no compensation if you shatter a leg or lose a hand. In an eight-month investigation, the Houston Chronicle found that the world's seas are routinely traversed by thousands of aged, poorly maintained ships that lack the most basic lifesaving and firefighting equipment. Such ships often are manned by overworked, ill-trained sailors who are unable to communicate, especially during crises, because of language barriers.
Cultural differences add to the tension.
The old tonnage stays on the market, and there are some hungry people in the world who can be brought in to man it. Borrowing a page from its European counterparts, the Coast Guard stepped up a ship inspection and detention program known as port-state control. More than one-third of the detentions since 1994 have come in the Coast Guard's 8th District, which includes Houston and Galveston and stretches from the panhandle of Florida on the east to Brownsville on the west. In August 1995, for example, the Coast Guard in Houston boarded the New Empress, a Liberian-flag tanker, and found that it was illegally carrying highly explosive ethyl alcohol. Thick with vapor, the ship was detained and gingerly unloaded.