Above: a recent vesseltracker.com map (24 hours ago) shows unusually large concentrations of moored, "at anchor" or "not moving" ships around Singapore.
Along with the rest of the world economy, shipping is in crisis. Ghost ship 'cities' of redundant oil tankers and cargo ships have been forming in the seas around Singapore as world trade goes stagnant.
Industry experts fear that 25% of the entire world fleet of container ships could be sitting idle within two years in what
shipping giant Maersk has called a 'crisis of historic dimensions'.
According to a report in the Daily Mail hundreds of ships are also massing off the southern coast of Malaysia:
It is so far off the beaten track that nobody ever really comes close, which is why these ships are here. The world's ship owners and government economists would prefer you not to see this symbol of the depths of the plague still crippling the world's economies.
So they have been quietly retired to this equatorial backwater, to be maintained only by a handful of bored sailors. The skeleton crews are left alone to fend off the ever-present threats of piracy and collisions in the congested waters as the hulls gather rust and seaweed at what should be their busiest time of year.
Local fisherman Ah Wat, 42, who for more than 20 years has made a living fishing for prawns from his home in Sungai Rengit, says: 'Before, there was nothing out there - just sea. Then the big ships just suddenly came one day, and every day there are more of them.
'Some of them stay for a few weeks and then go away. But most of them just stay. You used to look from here straight over to Indonesia and see nothing but a few passing boats. Now you can no longer see the horizon.'
The size of the idle fleet becomes more palpable when the ships' lights are switched on after sunset. From the small fishing villages that dot the coastline, a seemingly endless blaze of light stretches from one end of the horizon to another. Standing in the darkness among the palm trees and bamboo huts, as calls to prayer ring out from mosques further inland, is a surreal and strangely disorientating experience. It makes you feel as if you are adrift on a dark sea, staring at a city of light.
Shipping prices slashed
• This time last year, an Aframax tanker capable of carrying 80,000 tons of cargo would cost £31,000 a day ($50,000). Now it is about £3,400 ($5,500).
• The cost of sending a 40ft steel container of merchandise from China to the UK has fallen from £850 plus fuel charges last year to £180 this year.
Golden floating opportunities
• Thanks to cheap shipping Oxfam and other emergency organizations can now afford to send food to everyone on the planet who needs it.
• A lot of these boats could be immediately sent to Bangladesh to be used for housing, factories and as floating farms. Flooding is making hundreds of thousands of people homeless in Bangladesh and people trying to escape across the border to India are being shot in their hundreds.
• Container ships could be turned into floating water tanks by the United Nations to distribute water to drought stricken areas and disaster zones.
• Welded together the ships could make floating islands for refugees, possibly creating new floating countries or 'micro-states'.
• We could build a floating Olympic island.
If anyone has any other good ideas please add to comments.
