Saturday 23 February 2013

When I Read This Article,

about a ship breaking free of the tug that was towing it,


I immediately thought of a film we had watched some time ago, but back to the real world, in a convoluted story the 100-metre-long M/V Lyubov Orlova, a Yugoslavia-built vessel worked as an 'expedition' cruise ship specialising in polar regions, was seized by authorities in Newfoundland in 2010 amid spiralling debts owed to charter firm Cruise North Expeditions after faults on board meant a scheduled cruise had to be cancelled, she is understood to have been sold to Neptune International Shipping in February last year to be broken up,


as the boat was being towed to the Dominican Republic to be scrapped the cable pulling it snapped, leaving the Orlova to slip away as the crew on board the towing ship battled howling winds and 10ft waves to try in vain to reconnect the line, but all was not lost, Husky Energy dispatched the supply ship Atlantic Hawk to capture the vessel and tow it away from offshore oil platforms, but once it was firmly within international waters, the ship was set loose, in a statement, Transport Canada assured Canadians at the time that it was 'very unlikely' that the ship would veer back into Canadian waters,


after spending almost two months adrift the ghostly liner is reported to have re-emerged near Ireland's west coast - thousands of miles from its intended destination, Ireland was pulling together satellite data and getting in touch with Icelandic marine authorities but given the size of the North Atlantic search area (approximately 16,000 square miles) locating a vessel without any transponders functioning on board is very difficult,


'if it’s going to hit shore I would expect the Irish government would take the ship, bring it into a port and maybe look for compensation from the owner for any costs associated with that,' said William Cahill, a St. John’s lawyer and Chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s Maritime Law Section,


now back to the film, Ghost Ship, a team of salvers try to take a ship found drifting at sea and claim salvage on it, they all die as the ship is haunted but I wonder if any salvers in Ireland are considering taking the Lyubov Orlova as a prize?

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