Arctic Sea
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The Arctic Sea is a small cargo ship sailing under the flag of Malta . She became known through events in the summer of 2009, which have not yet been fully clarified, during which the ship was boarded by masked men in the Baltic Sea , then disappeared and was seized and liberated by the Russian Navy at Cape Verde .
General
For the Arctic Sea as the owner of the company was Arctic Sea Ltd. registered in Malta. The ship management was carried out by Solchart Management in Helsinki , Finland , the ISM management was in the hands of Solchart Arkhangelsk in Arkhangelsk , Russia . The Arctic Sea was mainly used to transport timber from Finland.
history
The ship was built in 1991 as Okhotskoe at the Sedef shipyard in Gebze / Istanbul .
Incidents in summer 2009
The ship left the Finnish port of Jakobstad on July 22, 2009 at around 00:30 UTC . According to official information, it was loaded with 6,700 m³ of sawn timber from the Swedish-Finnish forest company Stora Enso , worth around 1.3 million euros for Bejaia in Algeria . The ship was supposed to arrive in Bejaia on August 2nd at 12:00 UTC, but this did not happen. The circumstances of the disappearance led to speculation about the accuracy of the information on the cargo.
Before the voyage in the direction of Bejaia, the ship had been lying in Kaliningrad for overhaul work on June 24th and left the port on the night of July 17th to 18th for Jakobstad, where it arrived on July 20th around 11:00 UTC .
On July 31, it became known that the ship was in the early morning of July 24 between Öland and Gotland of eight masked men (ten or up to twelve people were also reported in some cases) who pretended to be drug investigators for the Swedish police , stopped and boarded with the help of an inflatable boat . The 15-person Russian crew is said to have been captured and the ship subsequently searched. According to various press releases, the men left the ship after a good twelve hours, which then continued its voyage.
On July 28, the ship reported by radio to the British authorities in Dover for the passage through the English Channel . The last time the ship's AIS signal was received by a shore station was on July 29 at 19:06 UTC when the Arctic Sea was sailing north of the French coast near Brest at 7.7 kn in the direction of WSW. The planned arrival time for Bejaia was now August 4th, 2009 at 23:00 UTC. Since then, according to official information, there has been no trace of the ship; conflicting reports of alleged sightings of the ship caused further confusion over the next few days. The Russian Navy deployed four warships from the Black Sea Fleet , three Project 775 dropships and the Ladny frigate , to search for the Arctic Sea , which were also supported by two nuclear submarines .
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On August 15, it was reported that the shipping company had received a ransom note for the ship. On August 17, Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov announced that the ship had been seized by the Russian Navy 480 km from Cape Verde , that the crew had been rescued and that the pirates had been arrested without resistance. After the successful liberation operation, the Russian ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin , admitted that the authorities had known the whereabouts of the Arctic Sea for days. However, the public was deliberately misled so as not to endanger the military action to liberate the occupation. Representatives from twenty countries participated in the liberation campaign.
In the days that followed, further inconsistencies in the official version were reported in the media. Analyzes from several countries concluded that the ship was too deep in the water to carry a cargo of wood. The suspicion was expressed that the timber shipment was camouflage for an arms shipment. The speculations went so far that there was talk of cruise missiles of the type Ch-55 and anti-aircraft missiles of the type S-300 . Iran or the Palestinian organization Hamas were named as possible recipients .
The pirates were brought to Russia ( Chkalovsky Air Base ) and charged. At least one of the defendants has since been convicted. Most of the crew were flown out for questioning by secret services and detained for two weeks with almost no external contact. The captain and the rest of the crew stayed on the Arctic Sea , which was to be towed by the Russian Navy to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk .
There is a suspicion that the crew had at least partially cooperated with the pirates. The alleged pirates themselves presented themselves as conservationists from the Baltic States . They were rescued from distress by the Arctic Sea , and there was no opportunity to disembark during the voyage. The Israeli secret service was named several times as the contractor for the kidnapping. Other sources see the Russian secret service FSB as the initiator. Most of the alleged pirates are Russians.
About three weeks after it became known that the Arctic Sea was to be towed to Novorossiysk by the Russian Navy, the conclusion of the investigation by the investigative committee was reported to the Russian public prosecutor's office with the result that only sawn timber was on board. The ship is now to be handed over to the Maltese authorities or the ship owner and to call at the Canarian port of Las Palmas . According to recent reports, the ship's application to stay in port was rejected because of alleged weapons on board or lack of merchant ship status.
On October 31, the ship reappeared in Valletta , Malta .
Since 2009
The Arctic Sea was sold to the Canadian company Great Lakes Feeder Lines for 1.8 million euros in 2010 and brought under the flag of Barbados . The ship was used by Great Lakes Feeder Lines for the transport of goods between the USA and Canada . At the end of October 2011, Amber Express Cargo, represented by PMAC Marine from Sharjah in the United Emirates, acquired the ship and renamed it Shelley Express in November 2011 . The ship later came under the Panamanian flag and later under the Tanzania flag as LTW Express . The ship is now operated as Baby Leen under the Panamanian flag. (Status: 2020)
Technical data and equipment
The drive of the ship is a MAN B & W - diesel engine (type: 6L35MC) with 3360 kW power , of a variable pitch propeller acts. The ship reaches a speed of around 13 knots . It is equipped with a bow thruster . Three generators are available for power generation, two with 264 kW and one with 300 kW.
The ship has two box-shaped holds . Room 1 is 25.88 meters long, 12.49 meters wide and 8.17 meters high. It tapers in the front part. Room 2 is 25.22 meters long, 12.49 meters wide and 8.17 meters high. The capacity of the rooms is 5,242 m³ for bulk goods and 5,100 m³ for general cargo . The rooms are closed with hydraulically operated folding hatch covers. The tank cover can be loaded with 8.5 t / m², the hatch cover with 1.75 t / m².
The ship is equipped with two cranes attached to the port side , each of which can lift 25 t or a combined 45 t.
The ship can load containers . The container capacity is 224 TEU . Great Lakes Feeder Lines stated the capacity was 270 TEU. 114 TEU can be found in the holds, 156 TEU on deck. With homogeneous loading with 14 ton containers, 203 TEU can be loaded. The maximum weight of a stack of 20-foot containers can be 75 t in the room and 45 t on deck, while that of a stack of 40-foot containers can be 100 t in the room and 60 t on deck. There are 21 connections for refrigerated containers.
The deck superstructures are located in the rear of the ship. A free-fall lifeboat is installed behind the deckhouse .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d General Information ( Memento of August 20, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), Russian Maritime Register of Shipping
- ^ Equasis ship safety data page, accessed August 13, 2009.
- ↑ Tommi Nieminen: Where are you, Arctic Sea? ( Memento of August 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Helsingin Sanomat.
- ↑ Rumors of radioactive cargo. ORF.at, August 17, 2009.
- ↑ Where are you, Arctic Sea? Helsingin Sanomat (engl.)
- ↑ a b Shipowner suspects kidnapping of the "Arctic Sea". Spiegel Online , August 13, 2009.
- ↑ Freighter attacked by pirates on the Baltic Sea. In: Spiegel Online , July 31, 2009.
- ↑ Russia's navy chases ghost ship. ( Memento from August 19, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: Financial Times Deutschland , August 17, 2009 (accessed August 18, 2009).
- ^ Ransom demand for "Arctic Sea" ( Memento from August 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), Tagesschau.de, August 15, 2009.
- ↑ Russia 'finds missing cargo ship'. In: BBC News . August 17, 2009. Retrieved August 17, 2009 .
- ↑ a b c Suspected weapons smuggling: Secret service releases seamen of the "Arctic Sea". In: Spiegel Online from August 30, 2009.
- ^ "Arctic Sea": The public was deliberately misled. In: Die Presse , August 18, 2009 (accessed August 18, 2009).
- ↑ Netanyahu in Moscow. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , September 11, 2009.
- ↑ Hans-Christian Rößler, Reinhard Veser: Should the “Arctic Sea” deliver missiles to Iran? , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 11, 2009. Accessed September 4, 2018.
- ↑ Chris Irvine: Arctic Sea ghost ship 'was carrying weapons to Iran' , The Telegraph, September 6, 2009. Retrieved September 4, 2018.
- ↑ Imprisonment for pirates of the "Arctic Sea" ( Memento from May 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Tagesschau , May 7, 2010.
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↑ See Spanish newspaper article El caso del 'Arctic Sea' se enturbia. In: El País , September 4, 2009:
- Hace dos días, Yediot Ajronot , el periódico de mayor difusión en Israel, daba en portada la noticia de que "piratas enviados por Mosad se apoderaron en alta mar del Arctic Sea"
- ↑ Roland Oliphant: Hidden in Plain View ( Memento of September 2, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), Russia Profile, August 27, 2009.
- ↑ The missile smugglers on the "Arctic Sea". ( Memento from September 24, 2009 in the web archive archive.today ) In: Salzburger Nachrichten , September 4, 2009.
- ↑ The Arctic Sea didn't just have wood on board. ( Memento from August 30, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), Basler Zeitung, August 26, 2009.
- ↑ Stefan Scholl: Arctic Sea - Like a story from Gogol ( Memento from September 2, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), Basler Zeitung, August 29, 2009.
- ↑ Confusion about "Arctic Sea": Freighter is allowed to call at Canary Islands , Sputnik Germany, September 15, 2009. Retrieved on September 4, 2018.
- ↑ Arctic Sea is still bobbing off the Canary Islands. September 17, 2009. Retrieved September 23, 2009.
- ^ After wandering the Arctic Sea: No foreign goods on board , Sputnik Germany, September 19, 2009. Accessed September 4, 2018.
- ↑ Arctic Sea is not allowed to call at the port of Las Palmas. News from the Spanish magazine Comprendes, September 21, 2009, accessed on September 23, 2009.
- ↑ Not a ship ( Memento of March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), News Solchart, September 24, 2009 (English).
- ↑ a b Great Lakes Feeder Lines adds second ship , Canadian Shipper, May 4, 2010. Retrieved September 4, 2018.
- ↑ a b c d MV Arctic Sea: ship specifications , Great Lakes Feeder Lines (PDF; 1 MB). Retrieved September 4, 2018.