Seized: A Sea Captain's Adventures Battling Scoundrels and Pirates While Recovering Stolen Ships in the World's Most Troubled Waters
Max Hardberger
Language: English
Pages: 195
ISBN: 2:00063238
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Seized throws open the hatch on the shadowy world of maritime shipping, where third-world governments place exorbitant liens against ships, pirates seize commercial vessels with impunity, crooks and con artists reign supreme on the docks and in the shipyards—and hapless owners have to rely on sea captain Max Hardberger to recapture their ships and win justice on the high seas.
A ship captain, airplane pilot, lawyer, teacher, writer, adventurer, and raconteur, Max Hardberger recovers stolen freighters for a living. In Seized, he takes us on a real-life journey into the mysterious world of freighters and shipping, where fortunes are made and lost by the whims of the waves. Desperate owners hire Max Hardberger to “extract” or steal back ships that have been illegitimately seized by putting together a mission-impossible team to sail them into international waters under cover of darkness. It’s a high stakes assignment—if Max or his crew are caught, they risk imprisonment or death.
Seized takes readers behind the scenes of the multibillion dollar maritime industry, as he recounts his efforts to retrieve freighters and other vessels from New Orleans to the Caribbean, from East Germany to Vladivostak, Russia, and from Greece to Guatemala. He resorts to everything from disco dancing to women of the night to distract the shipyard guards, from bribes to voodoo doctors to divert attention and buy the time he needs to sail a ship out of a foreign port without clearance. Seized is adventure nonfiction at its best.
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Uniforms and ran up in the hills.” At the big army checkpoint outside Grand Goave, the police barracks were deserted, although not burned out, and the traffic sped past unhindered. The police station in downtown Grand Goave was also deserted, its windows smashed out. The same was true in Petit Goave. “What about Miragoane?” I asked Ronald. “Are all the police gone there as well?” “No, no,” he said. “The Aristide police ran away, but Miragoane is a port. The foreign ships will not come if there.
Door that led to the factory equipment under the main deck. The vast, gloomy rooms were full of sinks and sorting tables. One room held a dozen giant boiling pots, with steam pipes stretching out below them like spider legs. Wrenches, rubber gloves, shovels, and ladles lay strewn on the floor. We went topside, our nostrils still full of the stink of fish oil, and crossed to the next ship. It was virtually identical to the first. They were all sister ships, and in the same condition. The last one.
In Zolotoy Rog.” As we went back inside, the tall receptionist beckoned us over. She handed us our passports and said, “Look. Your friend take visas.” I took my passport and rifled through it. The yellow visa booklet was gone. “Oh my God,” Annie said. “There’s no U.S. consulate here.” I turned to the hotel clerk. “Can you help us?” She frowned. “Can you not call your friend, get your visa back?” “No, we don’t know where he’s going.” She nodded. “Perhaps he not so friend, no? I will call.”.
Steroids. There were only about a dozen passengers, and within minutes the door was closed. A few minutes later the plane took off and banked toward the north. An hour later we landed at Khabarovsk, a dreary-looking city strung along a wide, gray bay, and the plane soon filled with laughing, jostling men. The noise level in the cabin shot up. “Miners,” said one of the Russians who’d come on board in Vladivostok, from the seat in front of us. “They are going to Seattle. The company gives them a.
Spending it in any way necessary to get the ship out of port.” I let that sink in. He was staring at the wall above my head. The damp circles under his arms had spread since I came in. I stood up again. “So I’ll see you at the Justice Court in Delmas. I know where it is. In fact, I know the judge.” That’s wasn’t a lie. I’d been involved in a seizure in that court some years earlier, and my client had lost because I didn’t know then how things work in Haiti. He struggled to his feet. “Mr. Max,.