Written in fulfillment of a Master's in Marine Affairs Degree at the University of Rhode Island in 2005, this is the harrowing tale of some 70 vessels over the past 30 years who have found themselves distressed at sea and begged coastal states for a safe place to stabilize their problems. As this unique research points out, more often than not they were turned away - and in the case of the Prestige in 2002, with disastrous results which polluted the coastlines of three countries, cost over US$5 billion, and indirectly led to the overthrow of the Spanish government. With careful analysis of the salvors point of view and with a windward eye on the environment, this study brings the reader through step-by-step analyses and methodologies through which to debunk or confirm assumptions. The research and listings of the 70 or so casualties themselves make harrowing reading, the analysis sections aret more academic, and the bibliography provides for extensive further research. This research has been requested by and supplied to all parties in the litigation between the Spanish government, the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), the Bahamas Maritime Authority, and their attorneys in the U.S. and Europe.
Eric Wiberg is qualified as a maritime lawyer and a member of the Maritime Law Association of the US and the American Salvage Association. A licensed captain, he has over 80,000 nautical miles of seagoing and command experience. For three years he hepled commercially operate a fleet of tankers for the firm which lost the Braer. He has written several books about travel and naval history. A citizen of the US and Sweden, he grew up in Bahamas and lives with his wife and son in Connecticut.
Author Biography:
Eric Wiberg's career since he began sailing professionally in 1989 has been in the maritime sector, lately as a lecturer and author. He grew up in the Bahamas as part of a large Swedish-American family with half a dozen lawyers. After boarding schools in Massachusetts and Newport, RI, he enrolled at Boston College in 1989. He began racing and delivering sailboats on long voyages, including sailing from the Caribbean to Belgium to attend Harris Manchester College, Oxford for the BC Honors Program. He backpacked in Europe and East Africa and published travel writing in over 20 periodicals. By graduation in 1993 he had bound five collections of prose, poetry, and drawings, then set off on a voyage to New Zealand as mate of the 68-foot wooden sailing ketch, Stornoway, over which he was promoted Captain in the Galapagos at age 23. A year of travel was the basis of his 450-page memoir Round the World in the Wrong Season. On his return to the US a year later, Eric obtained a 100-ton Captain's license from the US Coast Guard then sought work in commercial shipping. He was assigned to the operations desk of a fleet of tanker and bulk ships operated for public company BHO (B&H Oceans). After three years in Singapore and numerous crisis-control situations (including two ship casualties and four deaths), he returned to Newport to work in the Armchair Sailor bookstore and on his round-the-world memoir. Necessity drove him to utilize the captain's license to deliver sailboats to and from New England and the Caribbean, on the back of which he founded Echo Yacht Deliveries in 1999. In 2001 he completed his fourth round-world trip before enrolling at Roger Williams University School of Law in Bristol, on half scholarship. Under the joint-degree masters/Juris Doctorate program with the University of Rhode Island, he was able to study marine policy and present papers on man overboard rescues, tanker spill legislation, and salvage law, culminating in a 200-page final paper. During school he started a real estate company buying and selling roughly a dozen small lots in the Bahamas. He recruited over 100 sailors for voyages then sold Echo Yacht Deliveries in 2005. Eric has performed more than 30 Bermuda voyages and several trans-ocean deliveries, roughly half as captain. On passing the bar in Massachusetts and marrying Alexandra Gray (they had son Felix in 2007), he was recruited by executive search legend Russell Reynolds to join what became RSR Partners in Greenwich, CT. In late 2007 he left RSR to found Ketch Recruiting, still focusing on the shipping sector. He sold Ketch in 2008 to join Boyden global executive search in Baltimore, then joined the Connecticut Maritime Association in Stamford. After a stint with Titan Salvage in 2009, he spent three months helping salvage an oil platform from the seafloor off Freeport, Bahamas, for Overseas Salvage. In early 2010 he joined TradeWinds, a Norwegian shipping publication until October, 2013. Since then he has been Marketing Manager at McAllister Towing & Transportation in Lower Manhattan for 70 tugs in a dozen ports from San Juan to Portland for a roster of over 1,400 ship owners. In his spare time he is a widely published author, historian and lecturer on non-fiction maritime and naval history as well as memoir and travel. He is on boards or committees of the Steamship Historical Society of America (board), the New York Yacht Club (library), and Lyford Cay International School (editorial) in Bahamas.
