Maritime Lien Priority Calculator

When a vessel is arrested and sold at judicial auction to satisfy creditors, U.S. maritime law doesn't pay claimants proportionally — it pays them in strict priority order, and lower-ranked creditors get whatever is left over, which can be nothing. This calculator models that waterfall: it first deducts an estimated marshal's fee (3% of sale price, covering the court-appointed custodian who maintained the arrested vessel) off the top, then pays remaining claims in sequence — crew wages first, then salvage, then the preferred ship mortgage, then suppliers'/necessaries claims, and finally port charges — with each tier fully satisfied from whatever funds remain before the next tier gets anything. For each claim category the calculator reports a recovery percentage (amount actually paid divided by the amount claimed), which drops toward zero once the sale proceeds run out partway through the priority stack, and it flags any total shortfall where combined claims exceed what the vessel sold for.

This is a simplified model of a genuinely complex area of admiralty law: real maritime lien priority under the Commercial Instruments and Maritime Liens Act (CIMLA), 46 U.S.C. Chapter 313 — enacted in 1988 to recodify prior ship-mortgage and lien statutes — also weighs tort claims (like collision or pollution damage) and applies reverse-chronological ordering within some lien classes, neither of which this tool represents, and actual adjudication can turn on facts specific to each lien's timing and nature. Crew wage and salvage liens ranking above the ship mortgage — reflecting maritime law's traditional priority for the people and services that kept the vessel and voyage safe — is the single most important takeaway, but anyone facing an actual multi-lien vessel arrest needs a maritime attorney, not just this estimate.