Buy Your Own Aircraft Carrier

Vodalian writes "Distinction as the last surviving Aircraft Carrier built in England for WW II and commissioned as the HMS Vengeance in late 1944, this unique vessel served the British then the Australian Navy as HMAS Vengeance prior to her sale to Brazil In 1956. Undergoing reconstruction and overhaul in Rotterdam from 1957 to 1960 she was commissioned as the Minas Gerais in December of that year. During her service with the Brazilian Navy she was overhauled from 1976 to 1980 completing a 5-year refit in 1981. She was decommissioned on the 16th of October 2001 and is currently for sale."

Hell of a dance floor

[jhines]

Great place to throw a party, cruise outside the reach of the law in internatinal waters.

Hope the weather is good tho.

Nice Price

[jspoon]

$4.5 million sounds like a steal. It probably costs more than that to keep it in port for a year, let alone what it would actually cost to operate.

$4.5 million USD!

[2nd Post!]

So a complement of 1.300, each paying $400 a month rent...

That's easily a half million rent a month! So living aboard, for a year, would generate $6 million, which covers the cost of upkeep and purchase in 2 years, and profitable in 3!

Re:Nice Price

[Chris Mattern]

Which is why she's so cheap, of course. Massive operating costs make her a tough sell; there's probably nobody out there who will regard her as being worth the price it will take to run her. She's being sold for her scrap value, sad to say. Whoever buys her will undoubtedly break her up and sell the pieces.

Chris Mattern

Easier way

[Imperator]

Get your former CEO elected as Vice President of the United States.

What's in YOUR wallet?!

[Mulletproof]

Don't forget all those hidden fees when buying this carrier.

-Insurance (Ow.)
-Crew (you could get away with under a crew of thousand without aircraft and weapondry, I'm sure)
-Supplies
-Fuel (that's gonna kill ya)
-Licencing (I'm sure the government isn't just gonna let you run around with a spare carrier without some sort of tax)
-ATM fee

I don't care if it is only 4.5 mil. You're gonna have to have deeeep pockets just for upkeep, let alone taking it out for a spin... And you can stop with the Neal Stephenson jokes now. They've all been taken.

Re:Hell of a dance floor

[T-Ranger]

Aircraft carriers, when they dont have the air wing aboard, have next to no offensive weponry. Which is why both naval aviatiors have a shoot first and ask questions later policy on unfriendlys who stray within 200mi of there boat, and why carries have upwards of a dozen ships in there screening force.

Logical applications

[zakezuke]

Application #1: With current issues regarding DMCA laws and a whole bunch of bogusness... I'm rather shocked someone isn't considering buying such a beast in order to start up an off shore server in international waters. Pirate telivision / radio would also be a logical application.

Application #2: Organizations such as Green Peace need boats in order to get around and block access. This is a big boat.

Application #3: Off shore power plant. Production of things like hydrogen or other fuels.

European definition of "free"

[ArsSineArtificio]

Hmmmm. This must be some new, European definition of "free" that hasn't yet spread to the US.

Shhhh! You're supposed to pretend that it's the United States which has been trying for centuries to become a fascist, totalitarian empire [eu.int], and Europe which is trying desperately to preserve Western civilization. It's the new fad, you see.

ASA

Re:Nice Price

[crawling_chaos]

Under maritime law, ships must be registered in a country and therefore subject to its laws. You can't sail a ship in to the middle of the ocean and declare the ship to be a country.

Not to mention that it's going to have to have periodic dockings for maintenance and to take on supplies. Sorry, it just won't work.

Re:European definition of "free"

[Anonymous Coward]

And you're supposed to pretend a 70 hour work week, no socialized health care and the largest prison population on the planet makes you land of the free and home of the brave.
Go wave your Made in China flag elsewhere...

Re:Ummmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Brazil ain't the richest of nations (or the free-est, for that matter),"

Man, do you at least know Brazil to say that? Really sad to see that education, even in the "rich free countries" is going down to the drain...

Re:European definition of "free"

[Atzanteol]

It's times like this I wish I had mod points... I'm getting just as tired of all the U.S. bashing going on...

Re:Build your own aircraft carrier...

[73939133]

The US has ID cards, too: social security and drivers licenses. No modern society can function without them. In contrast to the US, Europeans have worked out strong privacy laws and carefully designed ID cards to address privacy concerns. The net effect is that privacy protections in Europe are stronger than in the US because Europeans are actually tackling issues of privacy, while Americans just stick their heads in the sand and pretend that the problem doesn't exist.

Similar comments apply to cameras. As for key escrow, I'm not aware of any Europe-wide adoption of key escrow policies. Can you point to any?