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Max Hardberger | |
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 Max Hardberger | |
| Born | Florian Max Hardberger November 19, 1948 Baton Rouge, Louisiana, US |
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Florian Max Hardberger (born November 19, 1948) [1] is an American adventurer, ship captain, aviator, ship recovery specialist, admiralty lawyer, and author of maritime fiction and nonfiction adventures. [1]
Hardberger received his high school degree in 1966 from the Castle Heights Military Academy in Lebanon, Tennessee. He became a licensed aircraft pilot at the age of 16 while at Castle Heights. [2] Hardberger attended college at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana, then transferred to the University of New Orleans for another two years of study. [2] In 1969, he graduated early with a BA in English. [2] During college, Hardberger became a scuba diver, sailor, and navigator. After college, he took creative writing at the University of Iowa (commonly known as the "Iowa Writers' Workshop"), where in 1972, he received an MFA in Fiction and Poetry. [3] In 1998, Hardberger earned a Juris Doctor degree from Northwestern California University School of Law in Sacramento, California, and was admitted to the State Bar of California. [4]
After college, Hardberger started his professional career with a short stint teaching English at Mandeville High School in Louisiana. [2] He then worked as a newspaper reporter for the Houma Daily Guide in Houma, Louisiana. He left the newspaper to explore Mexico in an old school bus before returning to the United States to attend graduate school. After he received his MFA degree in 1972, Hardberger taught English at All Saints Episcopal School in Vicksburg, Mississippi. He left teaching to work as a drummer in various blues bands on the Chitlin Circuit. [5]
In 1977, Hardberger returned to Louisiana to work as a deckhand and then as a mate on the oilfield supply vessel Magcobar Mercury, in the Gulf of Mexico. [6] After he earned a captain's license, Hardberger's employer sent him to the Dresser-Magcobar Drilling Fluids School in Houston to learn how to become a drilling fluids engineer. Hardberger initially worked in oilfields off the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast and then worked as a drilling fluids consultant in Guatemala during the civil war. Between oilfield hitches, Hardberger continued his flying lessons, earning commercial and flight instructor licenses, and took a wide variety of flying jobs, including towing banners, dusting crops, doing nightly check runs for banks, and transporting dead bodies for mortuaries. [2] [7]
Hardberger returned to the classroom for the 1984–85 school year, when he taught English and world history at Pope John Paul II High School (Slidell, Louisiana). [8] He briefly returned to the oilfields of Guatemala in 1985, then began crop dusting on a full-time basis in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. At the end of the 1986 crop dusting season, Hardberger traveled to Miami to search for new work. [2] [9]
When Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier was overthrown as the ruler of Haiti in 1986, trade opened up between the Caribbean nation and the United States. [2] After Hardberger left crop dusting, he found work on the Miami River as the captain of a small freighter. [2] [10] Among his commands was the Erika, a small freighter that transported cargo throughout the Caribbean. Hardberger's voyages on the Erika were the basis of his 1998 semi-autobiographical novel, Freighter Captain. [11]
Hardberger left the Erika to work for a Miami-based ship owner, MorganPrice & Co., [12] as port captain responsible for overseeing port calls by the company's ships. [2] During this period, a MorganPrice freighter, the Patric M, was seized by a shipper in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela. This required Hardberger to sail the vessel out of port under the cover of night and without clearance, in violation of Venezuelan law. [13] The operation was Hardberger's first vessel "extraction" and is detailed in his autobiography, Seized. [14]
Hardberger left MorganPrice in 1990 to form his own marine consultancy business in Louisiana. He was periodically retained by shipowners to extract their vessels from lawless ports without clearance from local authorities. In 1998, following his admission to the California Bar, Hardberger began to practice maritime law alongside his marine consultancy and vessel extraction business. In 2002, he formed the ship repossession company Vessel Extractions, LLC ("VessEx") to extract vessels illegitimately detained or seized in foreign countries. In 2004, Hardberger was featured in the Learning Channel series Repo Men: Stealing for a Living, in a segment titled "Repo Adventurer", documenting his extraction of a 10,000-ton freighter from Haiti during the 2004 rebellion and his delivery of the vessel to her mortgagee in the Bahamas. [15]
Hardberger's first book was Deadweight: Owning the Ocean Freighter (1994), [16] a textbook on ship ownership. He followed Deadweight with his first novel, Freighter Captain (1998), [17] a semi-autobiographical account of his adventures as a ship captain in the Caribbean. Hardberger then moved from maritime subjects to a murder mystery with his 1999 novel, The Jumping-Off Place, [18] which was a tribute to the hardboiled detective novels of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. On April 6, 2010, Hardberger's autobiography about his ship recovery adventures, titled Seized! A Sea Captain's Adventures Battling Scoundrels and Pirates While Recovering Stolen Ships in the World's Most Troubled Waters, was published by the Broadway Books imprint of Random House. [6]
Flag of convenience (FOC) is a business practice whereby a ship's owners register a merchant ship in a ship register of a country other than that of the ship's owners, and the ship flies the civil ensign of that country, called the flag state. The term is often used pejoratively, and although common, the practice is sometimes regarded as contentious.
A merchant ship, merchant vessel, trading vessel, or merchantman is a watercraft that transports cargo or carries passengers for hire. This is in contrast to pleasure craft, which are used for personal recreation, and naval ships, which are used for military purposes.
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The Hotel Oloffson is an inn in central Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Built in the late 19th century as a private home, it was turned into a hotel in 1935, and became known for the many artists and celebrities who stayed there. The hotel was the real-life inspiration for the fictional Hotel Trianon in Graham Greene's 1966 novel The Comedians.
USCGC Confidence (WMEC-619) is a United States Coast Guard medium endurance cutter.
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The Erika legislative packages of the European Union are maritime laws intended to improve safety in the shipping industry and thereby reduce environmental damage to the oceans.
CSL Tadoussac is a lake freighter currently operated by Canada Steamship Lines (CSL) on the Great Lakes. She was launched in 1969. Initially named Tadoussac, following her refit in 2001, she was renamed CSL Tadoussac She was the last freighter built for CSL in the traditional two superstructure design, which puts her bridge up in the ship's bow. The vessel primarily transports iron ore and coal.
Corvus was a steam cargo ship built in 1919 by Columbia River Shipbuilding Company of Portland for the United States Shipping Board as part of the wartime shipbuilding program of the Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC) to restore the nation's Merchant Marine. The freighter was operated on international and domestic routes through 1944. Early in 1945 she was transferred to Soviet Union as part of lend-lease program and renamed Uzbekistan. After several months of operation, the freighter was rammed by another vessel on 31 May 1945 and was beached to avoid sinking. She was subsequently raised and towed to Portland where she was scrapped in 1946.
In December 1971, the freighters Leyla Express and Johnny Express were seized by Cuban gunboats. The Leyla Express was stopped in international waters off the Cuban coast on December 5; the Johnny Express was intercepted by gunboats near the island of Little Inagua in the Bahamas ten days later. Some of the crew of the Johnny Express, including the captain, were injured when the gunboats fired on their vessel. The freighters both carried Panamanian flags of convenience, but belonged to the Bahama Lines corporation, based in Miami. The company was run by four brothers, Cuban exiles who had previously been involved in activities directed against the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. Cuba stated that both vessels were being used by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to transport weapons, explosives, and personnel to Cuba, and described the vessels as being engaged in piracy. Cuba had suspected the involvement of one of Bahama Lines's ships in shelling the Cuban village of Samá, on the northern coast of Oriente Province, a few months previously; several civilians had died in the attack. The US government of Richard Nixon and the Bahama Lines denied the accusations.
Samuel Q. Brown was a steam tanker built in 1920–1921 by Merchant Shipbuilding Corporation of Chester for Tide Water Oil Co., a subsidiary of Standard Oil, with intention of operating between New York and the oil-producing ports of the southern United States and Mexico.
War Baron was a steam cargo ship built in 1916-1917 by Northwest Steel Company of Portland for Lauritz Kloster of Stavanger. The vessel was launched as Vesterlide but was renamed early in 1917 after the Cunard Line bought the vessel from their Norwegian owners. The freighter was torpedoed and sunk in January 1918 with a loss of two men.
Cockaponset was a steam cargo ship built in 1918–1919 by Pacific Coast Shipbuilding Company of Bay Point for the United States Shipping Board as part of the wartime shipbuilding program of the Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC) to restore the nation's Merchant Marine. The vessel was largely employed on the Gulf Coast of the United States to Europe route until 1930 when she was laid up. In late 1940 the ship together with 15 other vessels was acquired by the British government to alleviate significant shortage of tonnage due to an ongoing German U-boat campaign. In May 1941 the freighter was torpedoed and sunk on her first war trip to the United Kingdom.
Lake Frampton was a steam cargo ship built in 1918 by American Shipbuilding Company of Lorain for the United States Shipping Board (USSB) as part of the wartime shipbuilding program of the Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC) to restore the nation's Merchant Marine. The vessel was employed in coastal trade during her career and collided with another steamer, SS Comus, and sank in July 1920 on one of her regular trips with a loss of two men.
Lakeside Bridge was a steam cargo ship built in 1919 by Submarine Boat Company of Newark for the United States Shipping Board (USSB) as part of the wartime shipbuilding program of the Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC) to restore the nation's Merchant Marine. The vessel was chiefly employed on the East Coast and Gulf to Europe routes throughout her short career. In December 1920 the vessel went ashore in strong gale and was wrecked without loss of life.
Milwaukee Bridge was a steam cargo ship built in 1918–1919 by Submarine Boat Company of Newark for the United States Shipping Board (USSB) as part of the wartime shipbuilding program of the Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC) to restore the nation's Merchant Marine. The vessel was first briefly employed on the East Coast to United Kingdom route in the first two years of her career before being laid up at the end of 1921. In 1927 she was acquired by Matson Navigation Company to operate between California and Hawaii and renamed Malama. On New Year's Day 1942 while en route to New Zealand under U.S. Army operation with cargo of military supplies she was discovered by Japanese merchant raiders and was scuttled by her crew to prevent capture.
West Pocasset was a steam cargo ship built in 1919 by Northwest Steel Company of Portland for the United States Shipping Board as part of the wartime shipbuilding program of the Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC) to restore the nation's Merchant Marine. The freighter was operated sparingly on the United States to Europe routes during the first two years of her career before being laid up. The ship was briefly reactivated in 1929 but was again laid up next year and remained idle for the next ten years. In January 1941 the freighter was sold together with four other vessels to the United States Line and was put under operation by its fully owned Panama-registered subsidiary to carry war matériel and supplies between Canada and United Kingdom and renamed Chepo. In early January 1942 while on one of her regular convoy trips, she was torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-43 with the loss of seventeen men.
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