After an exhaustive search for an International Group P&I Club insurance group to insure the Satoshi we have hit the roadblock of having no insurance company willing to insure the MS Satoshi upon dropping anchor in the Gulf of Panama. The closest we came was a company toying with us with a million dollar premium for a maximum of $5 million in coverage. Nothing close to the coverage we would need to be legally compliant. We did not foresee that the big boys club would be against such a small operation such as ours.
We had requested from the Panama Marine Authority to be considered a non-seagoing vessel which likely would have lessened our burden for insurance, eliminating the requirement to comply with about 32 of the 35 international maritime treaties which Panama has agreed to. However they came back letting us know that because we have an engine and we have a flag, we are to be considered seagoing. In the same way that because a male may have a penis, he is considered a rapist.
While we could have spent months and millions of dollars fighting, lobbying (see: bribing), or coming up with some complex alternative insurance solution to comply with the laws, we just did not have the support from the very communities which we created this project to support. Namely the seasteading community and the Bitcoin community. On the contrary, we were constantly attacked by the very people that we were trying to help.
With so many roadblocks ahead of us with the insurance being a show stopper and no support behind us, it is with a heavy heart that we have decided to sell the MS Satoshi and go back to focusing on our floating homes here in Panama.
The ship will begin its long journey (right before Panama’s Christmas lockdown) to India where it will be scrapped.
For those that want specifics on the insurance blockage we will have a more detailed post explaining this and how it may be resolved for seasteads in the future. And our plans to disrupt the oligopoly that shut us down.