A coffin ship is any

ship A ship is a large watercraft that travels the world's oceans and other sufficiently deep waterways, carrying cargo or passengers, or in support of specialized missions, such as defense, research, and fishing. Ships are generally distinguished ...

that has been overinsured and is therefore worth more to its owners sunk than afloat. These were hazardous places to work in the days before effective

maritime safety Maritime safety as part of and overlapping with water safety is concerned with the protection of life (search and rescue) and property through regulation, management and technology development of all forms of waterborne transportation. The execut ...

regulation. They were generally eliminated in the 1870s with the success of reforms championed by

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

Samuel Plimsoll Samuel Plimsoll (10 February 1824 – 3 June 1898) was a British politician and social reformer, now best remembered for having devised the Plimsoll line (a line on a ship's hull indicating the maximum safe draught, and therefore the minimum fr ...

. Many overloaded overinsured ships in the days of wooden sailing ships were old ships riddled with wood rot and woodworm and

shipworm The shipworms are marine bivalve molluscs in the family Teredinidae: a group of saltwater clams with long, soft, naked bodies. They are notorious for boring into (and commonly eventually destroying) wood that is immersed in sea water, including ...

, repainted and renamed and falsely stated to be new ships. There were over 2,000 cases of sailors who had signed on as crew for a ship being tried in court for refusing to board upon seeing its condition. Plimsoll stated in the

British Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative supremacy ...

, "The Secretary of

Lloyd's Lloyd's of London, generally known simply as Lloyd's, is an insurance and reinsurance market located in London, England. Unlike most of its competitors in the industry, it is not an insurance company; rather, Lloyd's is a corporate body gove ...

tells a friend of mine that he does not know a single ship which has been broken up voluntarily by the owners in the course of 30 years on account of its being worn out". In 1977, the ship ''

Lucona ''Lucona'' was a ship sunk in the Indian Ocean on 23 January 1977 by a bomb planted by Austrian businessman Udo Proksch, as part of an insurance fraud. Proksch, the owner of the cargo, also then-owner of famous Viennese confectioners Demel, claime ...

'' sank in the Indian Ocean as a result of a time bomb, which had been planted by

Udo Proksch Udo Proksch (29 May 1934 in Rostock, Germany – 27 June 2001 in Graz, Austria) was an Austrian businessman and industrialist. In 1991, he was convicted of the murder of six people as part of a major insurance fraud. Proksch died in prison. ' ...

, the owner of the cargo, so that he could fraudulently collect the insurance money. The cargo was claimed to consist of a disassembled uranium processing plant but in fact consisted of worthless scrap, and 6 of the 12 crew members died.

In popular culture

The 1900 Dutch play ''

Op hoop van zegen '' The Good Hope (''from Dutch language, Dutch: ''Op Hoop van Zegen''; more literally: ''Hoping for the best)'' is a Dutch play written by Herman Heijermans in 1900/1901. It takes place in a fishing village, with the conflict between the fisher ...

'' by the socialist playwright

Herman Heijermans Herman Heijermans (3 December 1864 – 22 November 1924), was a Dutch writer. Heijermans was born in Rotterdam, into a liberal Jewish family, the fifth of the 11 children of Herman and Matilda (Moses) Spiers. Painter Marie Heijermans was his ...

depicts a ruthless shipowner in a small Dutch village sending an unsound fishing boat out into a stormy sea, with the deliberate result that it becomes lost with all hands with the owner pocketing the insurance money. The play is considered a classic of Dutch theatre and literature and was adapted to film four times. The

BBC television drama BBC television dramas have been produced and broadcast since even before the public service company had an officially established television broadcasting network in the United Kingdom. As with any major broadcast network, drama forms an importan ...

series ''

The Onedin Line ''The Onedin Line'' is a BBC television drama series that ran from 1971 to 1980. The series was created by Cyril Abraham. The series is set in Liverpool from 1860 to 1886 and covers the rise of a fictional shipping company, the Onedin Line, nam ...

'' details coffin ship fraud in 1972 episode S02E07 ''"Coffin Ship"'', and presents Samuel Plimsoll and his efforts in 1973 episode S03E06 ''"Danger Level"'' as well.

Leon Uris Leon Marcus Uris (August 3, 1924 – June 21, 2003) was an American author of historical fiction who wrote many bestselling books including '' Exodus'' (published in 1958) and ''Trinity'' (published in 1976). Life and career Uris was born in Ba ...

also refers to coffin ships in his novel '' Redemption''. ''

The Death Ship ''The Death Ship'' (German title: ''Das Totenschiff'') is a novel by the pseudonymous author known as B. Traven. Originally published in German in 1926, and in English in 1934, it was Traven's first major success and is still the author's second ...

'' (German title: ''Das Totenschiff'') is a novel by the pseudonymous author known as

B. Traven B. Traven (; Bruno Traven in some accounts) was the pen name of a novelist, presumed to be German, whose real name, nationality, date and place of birth and details of biography are all subject to dispute. One certainty about Traven's life is ...

which deals with sailors working on a ship which the owners want to sink.

References

External links

* {{cite web , url=http://bookwormonthenet.blogspot.com/2006_07_02_archive.html , title=Review of ''The Plimsoll Sensation'' , work=Bookworm on the Net , publisher= Blogspot.com , date=July 2, 2006 Insurance legislation Marine insurance Admiralty law Ethically disputed business practices Shipwrecks History of insurance

In popular culture

See also

References

External links