Avast, here not be free mooring, declares Kawasaki.

Even without much of a background in Japanese geography, I’m willing to bet that a lot of people would assume, correctly, that Kawasaki Ward is inside the city of Kawasaki. What far fewer people would be able to guess, though, is that inside Kawasaki Ward is a pirate ship.

And yet…

▼ Yarrr!!!

That 24.7-meter (81-foot) long vessel is the Anniversary Cruise. Okay, maybe not as intimidating a name as the Queen Anne’s Revenge or Night Rambler, but still a fitting-enough moniker for a party boat rentable for excursions in Tokyo Bay or the waters of the capital’s neighboring coastal prefectures of Kanagawa and Chiba. Or at least the Anniversary Cruise was available for rent, until its owners docked it in the Port of Kawasaki, directly to the south of Tokyo, in October of 2018.

Now, you might be thinking that the building it’s moored at looks like neither a pirates’ den nor a cruise office, and you’re right. That building behind it is the facility of Nihon Dust, a recycling and industrial waste management company. And if you’re surprised that a pleasure boat would be docked there, so too was Nihon Dust. Not only does Nihon Dust not rent out mooring space to other companies, extended mooring at that part of the canal is prohibited under the port’s regulations.

And yet, the Anniversary Cruise’s owners decided to park there anyway, apparently in the hope that no one would notice, or mind, a giant pirate ship that had suddenly appeared. Things, of course, did not turn out that way, and in November of 2018, Kawasaki City ordered the ship’s owners and operating company to remove the ship, but economic and legal issues hindered swift enforcement. So for nearly eight years, the Anniversary Cruise has remained abandoned in front of Nihon Dust.

You may have also noticed, though, that the Anniversary Cruise seems rather dramatically angled for a vessel that’s been sitting idle for close to a decade. On a day this past February when especially fierce winds were blowing, the ship tipped far enough that it began to take on water, and with the owners not in the mood to come by with a bilge pump, the listing is getting worse, as photos taken since then show that it’s partially sinking.

▼ April

▼ May

▼ June

Should the ship capsize and or/drift away from its mooring, it could severely disrupt shipping lanes and other port traffic, and so now Kawasaki City has decided that enough is enough, announcing on June 16 that it will begin demolition and removal of the Anniversary Cruise, scheduled to begin the next day. The process is projected to take approximately one month and cost roughly 33 million yen (US$209,000), an amount the city plans to charge the owners with covering.

Source: Sankei Shimbun, Funeco
Top image: Wikipedia/Binnette
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