The 'Basen', which had been in collision with a 17-ft-pleasure boat off Rosendal on June 25, 2024, is still at the quay in Leirvik as of Feb 11, 2025. After the accident, the vessel received 27 serious orders from the Norwegian Maritime Directorate which was well above normal. The ship has since been released, but it does not have certificates to sail. The shipping company has not requested a 5-year renewal, and therefore has not maintained its shipping certificate. according to the Norwegian Maritime Directorate. Now the owner company Sealg, based in Førde, has gone bankrupt. The company had 16 employees and two older cargo ships, besides the "Basen" the Vestfrakt.. It was one of the company's employees who filed for bankruptcy against his own employer. The bankruptcy petition states that the bankruptcy was the result of a claim of 134,000 Norwegian crowns. On the same day that the bankruptcy petition was submitted, Sealg tried to file bankruptcy itself (commissioning), but they were not allowed to do so due to the bankruptcy claim. The bankruptcy petition will be filed in Sogn og Fjordane District Court in early March. Report with photo: https://www.nrk.no/vestland/kollisjon-mellom-fritidsbat-og-lastebat-i-rosendal-1.16940320
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BOY JASON
On the morning of Feb 4, 2025, the fisherman Moses Odonkor, who was working on board the 'Boy Jason', which operates out of Castletownbere. died as the result of the freak accident, which occurred at about 6 a.m. when the crew were shooting their nets. His crew mates were unable to revive him. The captain of the vessel immediately notified the Coast Guard, who then alerted the gardaí. Members of the gardaí were in Castletownbere on Feb 5 at 2 a.m., when the vessel arrived back in to port, and the quay was cordoned off. A doctor was in attendance and he officially pronounced the 57-year-old fisherman dead, and his body was taken to CUH for a post-mortem examination. At 8 a.m., the gardaí, the marine casualty investigation unit, and members of the health and safety authority conducted an examination of the vessel, as happens with all workplace fatalities.
KOALA
The owner of the 'Koala', which suffered three explosions during engine startup in the port of Ust-Luga, will have to remove the vessel from the port within three months, according to the port captain Igor Zolotykh’s order released on Feb 10. "The removal of the sunk property is to be performed within a period which does not exceed three months from the date of issuance of this order." The vessel's tanks contain almost 130 000 tons of oil products, of which more than 111000 tons are fuel oil. Russian investigative bodies did not rule out the possibility that the ship was deliberately blown up. Three holes have been found in the hull near the engine room during an inspection of the exterior using a mini-ROV. Russian security services believed that the tanker may have been mined. No explosives have been found aboard, but security services were inspecting the interior of the vessel with K9 teams and a thorough ROV survey was continued. In addition to the Russians, representatives of Finland have also begun to independently investigate the incident. To collect data on the consequences of the accident, the Finnish military sent a reconnaissance aircraft. The 'Koala' is part of Russia’s shadow fleet, which helps the Kremlin bypass Western oil sanctions. Greenpeace has previously documented technical issues with the ship, noting that its crew disabled the AIS while sailing through the Baltic Sea. The last AIS data were from Feb 7. As well as changing its name five times and its owner three times, in the past year the 'Koala' has sailed under four different flags and had previously experienced technical difficulties. The crew had already turned off the AIS on an earlier journey through the Baltic Sea, a tactic employed by ships in the shadow fleet to avoid having their journeys monitored.
SPARTA
A convoy of the two Russian cargo ships 'Sparta' and 'Sparta II' and the Class A oil tanker 'General Skobelev', part of the Kremlin’s so-called ‘ghost fleet, will pass the port of Dover within a few miles sometime in the coming week, raising serious security concerns. Ammunition and weapons on board the three vessels are being repatriated to Russia from Syria. The dictator lost his Navy base in the Mediterranean coastal city of Tartus after the collapse of the Assad regime, which Russia backed throughout the Syrian civil war. Since then, Russia has stepped up its military withdrawal from the country, removing vehicles and containers with a lighting speed. The large landing ships 'Ivan Gren' and 'Alexander Otrakovsky' were also seen as part of the convoy. The convoy is currently positioned a few miles from Lisbon and is sailing towards Spain. The vessels will go through the English Channel and then the North Sea. The 'Sparta I' and 'General Skobelev' are expected to arrive at Saint Petersburg between Feb 21 and 23. The 'Sparta II' will call at the Russian naval port of Baltiysk and then proceed to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. The Russian fleet has no friendly port on the way to Saint Petersburg and is forced to repair whatever breakdowns at sea and without assistance. There have already been reports that the 'Sparta' has suffered technical problems both en route to Tartus and on its return journey. Report with photos: https://metro.co.uk/2025/02/10/putin-sending-ships-packed-full-weapons-just-a-miles-dover-22528742/
FORTUNE PRIDE
The owner of the 'Fortune Pride' has identified the two crewmembers who lost their lives in the shipwreck. On Feb 6 at around 10 p.m. the Joint Rescue Coordination Center in Halifax had received an EPIRB signal from the vessel about 10 nautical miles southeast of her homeport of Sambro, Nova Scotia. The center mobilized two rescue vessels to the scene, along with a Cormorant SAR helicopter and a Hercules search plane. Conditions were difficult, including 12-foot swells, fog and rain. One rescue vessel found three survivors on the night, including one who was unconscious. They were evacuated to a hospital, and one later passed away. The next morning, a helicopter aircrew found an additional crewmember in a life raft. The man was unresponsive when rescued and was later pronounced dead too. On Feb 8, the owner of the 'Fortune Pride' released the names of the deceased: skipper John Allen Baker, a well-known and respected name in Atlantic Canada's fishing industry; and deckhand Phil MacInnis. The two other crew members have been released from the hospital and were in good physical health. At the time of the capsizing, the 'Fortune Pride' was reportedly carrying about 20 tonnes of silver hake and was standing by offshore. The owner's last contact with Baker was about an hour and a half before the sinking, and at the time, the skipper reported no issues; he was waiting for daylight for the transit into port. Canada's Transportation Safety Board started investigating the cause of the casualty. The owner has stressed that the vessel was in good condition prior to the capsizing. Baker was a local legend in Nova Scotia's fisheries. He had five decades of experience on all types of fishing vessels, and his services as a skipper were in demand. He had survived a previous sinking in 2013: While he was serving as skipper aboard the fishing vessel 'Gentle Lady', a heavy load of sea cucumber shifted in heavy swells. The crew fought to correct it, but the shuo took on a list to port side, flooded and capsized. Baker and his crew abandoned ship into a liferaft and were adrift at sea for six hours before a Good Samaritan rescued them. Baker later recovered the wallet he had left in the 'Gentle Lady''s wheelhouse in the rush to abandon ship. Four years later, it came up from the bottom while he was dragging for clams on another vessel.