Of course, when all else fails, sometimes all we can do is remove the wreck.

And on what legal basis is wreck removal conducted - contractual or statutory? A vessel, or a piece of property, which is at the bottom of the ocean can be claimed as traditional (in Germany: statutory, as in § 577 HGB) salvage. And in general, valuables will be claimed in this manner since doing so offers an economic reward. But what about when the salvage is especially perilous, uneconomical, the items are of little value but very environmentally hazardous, or if the recovery is mandated by the authorities? In this case, the incentive to salvage on private initiative is not there. Judge Story J's remark about salvage being a mix of public policy and private right is very smart. In these scenarios, a separate, contractual basis for the salvage is needed.

BIMCO offers three great standard wreck removal forms which address various aspects of contract salvage. (Note: Lloyd's Open Form will not be discussed in this article.) Whether via a daily hire, a fixed price or staged lump sum payments, the nature of salvage has changed and along with it, the legal frameworks within which the work can be conducted.

BIMCO's contracts have in common that they contain descriptions of the "Vessel" to be salvaged. But the definition of "Vessel" is noteworthy. While in plain English the word "vessel" means a ship of some kind, in BIMCO's contractual, legally defined language, it means any kind of conceivable property, even bunkers! Thus these agreements can apply to a very wide range of situations and can be flexibly adjusted for any particular variety of desired salvage operation.

The "nature of services" (e.g. Box 7 in WRECKHIRE) is definable in all of the mentioned BIMCO contracts. This is useful when the scope of the wreck removal is particularly complicated and does not simply involve the straightforward salvage of a wreck. The nature of the services can also be defined as deconstruction, transport, environmental cleanup, retrieving a discrete part of a wrecked vessel (e.g. an expensive propeller) or even taking apart an offshore installation and dismantling its foundation which is attached to the ocean floor.

A section under "nature of services" also permits the parties to agree on compliance with official requirements, a facet which will be particularly salient whenever environmental considerations play a role at the worksite. Also important is WRECKSTAGE's Box 12, namely extra costs: with the complex nature of today's salvage, sometimes specialized equipment needs to be manufactured from scratch in order to make the performance possible. The costs can be divvied up between the two parties so that both feel they are getting a fair shake. The other C/Ps have similar boxes, e.g. the corresponding box in WRECKHIRE for extra costs is Box 14.

With all the diversity of today's market, BIMCO's contracts need to offer a lot of flexibility. The rising technical requirements have been touched upon, but are becoming especially intimidating with the ever-growing size of the world's biggest projects. WRECKSTAGE is the agreement which will typically be used for complex jobs. It allows for payment upon reaching certain milestones, as in Box 9. Given that salvage jobs can take a great deal of time, this is vital to ensure a flow of liquidity to the salvor. Otherwise the salvor would be asked to undertake expensive and time consuming performance whilst taking no more than the payment on signing.