Ship Arrest!

It was late on friday evening. I was looking forward to a restful weekend. It had been a rough couple of weeks.

It was not to be.

I was called into Brilliant Boss' (BB) room. He had a view overlooking the Singapore harbour. It was already dark and all I could see were the ship lights blinking on the ocean.

- Possible instructions to arrest! I want you to handle it.

I blanched. It was the day before Hari Raya/Eid. Our process server cum court clerk would be busy with his family. I would have to arrest the ship by myself!. I gulped and nodded.

It was a long friday night as I prepared the papers and ran through the entire procedure again. A, BB's super secretary was worried for me.

- You can't go and arrest a ship by yourself! What if you get raped?

So it was that B was assigned to aid me in this my first arrest.

The next day, we played the waiting game. Having informed the Bailiff and the Duty Registrar (a junior judge), we could only polish up the papers and line up the other details.

I had not been eating well for a couple of weeks, but I tried to stuff some lunch into myself knowing that I would need all the energy I could get. Alas, before I could quite finish it was ALL SYSTEMS GO!

We donned our court attire, grabbed the papers and rushed to Court. It was a Saturday and a Public Holiday so neither the Judge nor the Bailiff were in formals. B and I looked like out of place penguins in the vast and empty High Court.

There was a problem with the papers! We had to get a Commissioner of Oaths! Further Delay!

Thankfully both the Judge and the Bailiff were cutie-pies so I was kept suitably occupied :-p

Finally we got our Warrant of Arrest!

It was already dark as we rushed back to the office to change into something suitable. I had my "lucky" lime green Puma shoes and trusted them to keep me safe.

The stats that came in as we rushed to the Pier though were not encouraging. The biggest ship in that particular anchorage! About 5-6 stories high. I prayed hard.

We were soon in the launch. I noted that there were no formalities about life-jackets and informed B that "I could not swim". He assured me pragmatically - Don't worry, you won't survive a fall to need to know how to swim.

Though we had the particular anchorage and the grid number (the harbour is divided into grids on a map and ships are assigned to particular locations in various grids), we could not seem to find the ship.

It was close to 10 pm by now and our launch slid between the various ships while obligingly shining its lamp on their hulls (to check their names). It was a veritable needle in the haystack. Finally, B had the brilliant idea of asking the launch guy who had gone in the morning to speak to our guy. After a brief conversation in Malay on the handphone, our guy banked sharply starboard (right) and headed towards a HUGE ship.

The three of us stared at it. The launch's lamp shone on its name. It was our baby alright. The launch guy whistled. That there is one high mailto:*&@* ship!

He tooted his horn repeatedly to rouse the ship. I stared at the rope ladder hanging by the side of the ship. It seems I would have to face my two greatest fears - the water and heights.

After a while, there seemed to be some activity onboard. A gangway was being lowered! Hopefully, it would go down far enough so we need not utilise the rope ladder. It did! The gangway was like a metallic staircase - the "stairs" though were made of wooden planks.

B jumped from the launch to the gangway first. With my heart in my mouth I followed. I made it to the gangway! We trudged up. I could see the sea lapping between the planks of the gangway and prayed hard that I would not trip in some way. I am such a klutz I can trip getting from point A to point B. It seemed so high! It was endless!

Finally, we reached the top and clambered on to the deck. What a huge ship! I was shaking like a leaf by now but took a deep breath and followed B. Sure enough the first thing I did was to trip over something and bruise my shin!

We were led to the Captain's cabin. Thankfully he was more than civil (these things can sometimes turn ugly) and offered us cans of coke. I drank mine to take in some glucose as my hands were visibly shaking when I passed him the relevant papers.

He then escorted us to the wheelhouse of the ship where we pasted the Warrant of Arrest as per procedure.

After the various formalities were concluded, we were escorted back to the gangway. Going down was almost as bad as going up. At the bottom, the launch was just too far away for me and I froze, remembering how I had fallen into the water at Pangkil in a similiar situation. But at Pangkil it was day, I had a life-jacket, there were no motorised craft around and I had many friends to save me.

B! I cried out. He came back to the side and held out his hand. I grabbed his hand and jumped onto the moving launch. We clung to the sides and crept back inside the launch.

So you have done your first arrest, B said smiling at me.

Yeah, I said smiling back as the launch headed back towards the Pier and the lights of Singapore blinked at us invitingly from the shore.

If the reader is wondering what the hell I was doing "arresting a ship" please go to http://maritimelawcenter.com/html/arrest_of_vessel.html for an explanation.