Escrow Transport Monies, if possible

I've known about this since Feb 28th. The Billesborg came in around March 2nd and that's when everything hit the fan. Due to business conflicts and such I didn't want to be the first to mention it.

Never mind inconvenience and violation, that's a lot of money. Also it's only the beginning of the drain because now the lawyers are involved. I suspect it will be resolved (and not to the owner's pleasure) with the word bankruptcy.

It's already filed ...

Yacht Path, Unity Shipping file Chapter 11 - South Florida Business Journal

The yachts being transported are not assets of the company.

How can they be arrested if they do not belong to the company?

The shipowner has a lien on the goods carried for amount of the freight payable.

No tickee no laundly.

The ship owner never got paid for delivering the yachts so they have a right to hold the cargo(arrest) until they get their money.

It's a real shame everything that has gone on. One owner's yacht was supposed to be shipped to somewhere on the west coast of South America from the west coast of the US and got shipped to Ft. Laud, they had to pay the ship to get it off and now have to find a way to ship to where it's supposed to go. Many people have had to pay twice (YP up front and then the ship to get it off). The other issue I heard is that every yacht had to pay the same amount to get their yacht off of the ship......So for a 100' it wasn't such a big deal.....but for the guy with a 40' it was more than he paid to ship it to begin with..... many issues

As a ship owner you are in fairly good position if you have a lien on the goods carried. As long as your ship is not arrested. We have had cases where we carried cargo like stowaways back with us, because we knew, if we put the cargo on the pier in a country were the legal arm of our flag state could not reach, we would never see the money.

Worst things happen, when your ship is arrested because of legal issues with third party cargo. The shipping company or the skipper has to some extend no real knowledge, what kind of goods are in the containers. The only thing we know is the paperwork and the real weight of the box, when it is hanging on the hook. We have no right to open a box except for safety reasons. The only thing we can do, if we are in doubt about the paperwork of a cargo, we can put it back on the pier and deni the transport or call customs or the coast guard. And than you are back to stepp one. Embargo issues, drugs or illegal weapons are a nightmare in our business.

In normal cases we can sue the cargo handler or broker for the money, as the cargo fee goes through his accounts, but on very expensive special transports we take the transport fees in advance on an dedicated ascrow account.

But holding back private yachts for third partys misconduct would not have been my favorite method.

Cheers