SWZMaritime reports the intentional sinking of the four year old 300,000 ton ore carrier Stellar Banner, reportedly the largest vessels ever scuttled.
That they chose not to attempt to scrap this vessel tells us a lot about the state of the world wide ship salvage and recycling business. This happened off Brazil. Something similar could happen in a US port. In the future, a Coast Guard Captain of the Port might be asked about the possibility of an intentional sinking.
Thanks to Sven for bringing this to my attention.
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 
Missed opportunity for a test of what it would take to stop a commercial vessel taken over by terrorists…
Remember the New Carissa that ran aground by Coos Bay. Oregon in 1999? Once she was able to be towed off the beach scuttling her didn’t go as planned. Scuttling charges weren’t effective, a 69 round gunex from navy assets weren’t effective, and finally a sub had to show up and expend a torpedo.
I do hope one day the Coast Guard will have a Sink-Ex of their own.
i THINK THE USCG had an exercise trying to sink a ship off Vancouver Island in Canada. The ship had drifted across the Pacific from Japan following the earthquake and tsunami some ears ago.
If my memory is correct it took a lot of ammunition to sink the ship. They did ot want the ship to go aground on Vancouver Island with the environmental damage to the shoreline
The href=”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryou-Un_Maru”>110′ Anacapa vs. Ryou-Un Maru proved that the P-250 was more useful than 25mm gunfire.
Covered the incident here along with discussion. https://chuckhillscgblog.net/2012/04/06/what-does-it-take-to-sink-a-ship-illustrated/
While I also criticized choosing scuttling over recycling, someone somewhere pointed out that the damage to the hull was so extensive that the vessel stayed barely afloat with constant pumping and compressed air. Towing the wreck to a scrapyard would have likely ended with the ship sinking somewhere else.
Perhaps in-situ scrapping or at least more extensive clean-up could have been considered instead? Also, note that the radar antenna is still rotating – so much for emptying the fuel tanks…