Can a member of the public purchase an old supertanker or cargo ship that is not in use? If so, how?

I presume if a member of the public has the cash, you could certainly buy a used tanker or even a passenger ship if you wanted to. Ages ago, I searched Google for the same thing and found cargo and tanker ships ready for sale and looking at not a bad price, if ya got the doe. There are places around the world that harbours ships that the companies for some reason retired those ships. They just sit there and rust away or are bought by either other companies or I suppose indervidual's with dollars in their pockets. I travelled on a passenger ship in 1966, that had been sitting in such a habour until Chandris Lines bought it. I know that it was returned there years later when they retired it, someone else bought it and tried to re-use it for cruises in America. By then it had so many faults, it was retired again and sold for scrap to another country, but broke off from the tow and is lying rusting to bits. Many of the Tanker/ cargo ships that I saw, were under 1 mill USD$. I seem to think, even if ya bought a cheapie, that would be the least of ya problems in money terms. You would then have to pay for the fuel, a crew, a captain and where would you park it? It all cost Dollars. Then I suppose ya have to get it seaworthy and insured and I think that alone would cost a bit more then ya local car or 15 ft boat. Email me if you want and I will tell you about the ship I travelled on and it's history.

your best bet is south america,like panama or cuba

One of the problems with purchasing supertankers, even if one had the cash, is that most of the ones on the market are single-hull designs. Single-hull tankers are being phased out of service and are being replaced by double-hull tankers. Large tankers built after 1993 are all double-hulled. Existing single-hull ships must be converted to double-hull or taken out of service. This process is to be completed by 2010. Double-hull ships are *much* less liable to leak their cargo when badly damaged.