I'm no expert but the ship does not appear to be at sea. One could even venture so far to say that that is the crux of the matter.

Not an expert either but I found this:

>Thus, if the ship was not a under command, unable to navigate or to reach port unaided, the service will be considered salvage even though the ship was not in imminent danger of destruction.

>It was in the light of this that Gilmore posits that releasing a ship that has run aground or on reefs, breaching a ship to keep her from running on rock, raising a sunken vessel, putting out a fire, and recapture of a ship taken by pirates, are all salvage acts.

The maritime salvor as a volunteer adventurer, Nzeribe Ejimnkeonye Abangwu, International Journal of Law, Volume 3; Issue 5; September 2017

I see what you did there

Well, the law of salvage wouldn't apply since there's no "peril at sea" involved - the ship and its crew and its cargo are in no imminent danger. They are stuck, but there's no damage or destruction expected to them that would justify salvage. Losses by ship inactivity or blocking the channel are out of scope for salvage, since these are costs to someone else, and salvage law applies when you rescue the property of the ship owner/operator, it refers only to value of ship and cargo and (recently) environmental damage like oil spills (if it would be the liability of the ship operator).

That's not a good deal. If it was your property that was lost, you now have to pay full price in cash to get your property back?

If that was the deal, forget salvaging it, just buy a new one with the cash instead.

Just ditch the ship and buy a new one if that's the choice you face.

Commensurate means proportionate, not equivalent. A $100 reward for rescuing a $100 billion ship is not commensurate, and neither is a $100 billion reward.

Well then what's the factor? 0.1? 0.5? 0.7?

From what I recall, its 25%

Oh it gets better, they could declare General Average https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_average and then instead of buying new one of what you lost you are chipping in for everyone else on board.