Missing Ship Possibly Found Without Viking-Pirates

[Vonne]

A missing merchant ship with 15 Russian crew members on board has been spotted off the coast of West Africa, unconfirmed reports say.

The Arctic Sea had last been sighted in the Bay of Biscay on 30 July.

Reports citing coastguards suggested it had been seen some 400 nautical miles north of the Cape Verde islands.

However amid continuing uncertainty, the Russian envoy in Cape Verde said he had contacted the military there and the sighting had not been confirmed.

Russian navy ships have been searching for the 4,000-tonne Maltese-flagged vessel, which had been carrying timber.

Observers have suggested the ship was hijacked, possibly because of a Russian commercial dispute.

BBC

[Vonne]

This really has been an interesting saga as of late.

[Miss Mia]

??

[Vonne]

Finnish ship hijacked in Swedish waters - July 30th

A Finnish ship was hijacked off the Swedish island of Öland in the early hours of last Friday.

A group of black-clad masked men boarded the ship and, claiming to be police officers, searched the Maltese-registered vessel which was laden with timber bound for Algeria.

The vessel's Russian crew were bound and gagged for the duration of their 12 hour ordeal which began at around 3am on Friday July 24th.

The Swedish National Police Board (Rikspolisstyrelsen) have stated that the men were not police, neither were they representatives from any other authority.

"It is the first time I have ever heard of such a thing in Swedish waters," Ingemar Isaksson at the board said to the TT news agency.

LINK

Russian navy joins hunt for ship - Aug 9th

Russia's navy has been deployed to find a ship reportedly hijacked three weeks ago in the Baltic Sea.

Up to five vessels - reported to include nuclear submarines - will be involved in the search for the Maltese-flagged Arctic Sea, the navy confirmed.

It has a 15-strong Russian crew and was reportedly taking timber worth $1.5m (£900,000) from Finland to Algeria when it was boarded by gunmen on 24 July.

LINK

Hijacked ship in the English Channel - Aug 11th

An international maritime hunt is underway for a missing cargo ship which is thought to be the first hijacked vessel to be sailed through the English Channel in modern times.

The Arctic Sea, a Maltese registered, Latvian-owned ship with a 15-strong Russian crew, vanished with its £1m cargo at the end of July on its way from Finland to Algeria.

British coastguards were the last people known to communicate with the ship on 29 July as it passed along the Channel but it wasn't realised at the time that anything was wrong.

LINK

Hunt on for 'hijacked cargo ship' - Aug 12th

search is under way for a cargo ship which may have travelled through the English Channel after apparently being hijacked by pirates.

Coastguards fear the Maltese-flagged Arctic Sea, carrying up to 15 Russian crew, was hijacked in the Baltic sea.

UK authorities had the last known contact with it as it entered the Strait of Dover. Up to five Russian navy warships are seeking the vessel.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency said the situation was "bizarre".

Spokesman Mark Clark said: "Who would think that a hijacked ship could pass through one of the most policed and concentrated waters in the world?

LINK


Commercial dispute not pirates blamed over missing ship - Aug 12th

Doubts have been expressed as to whether a cargo ship that went missing in European waters a fortnight ago was in fact captured by Somali-style pirates, as maritime officials fear.

The Russian-crewed Arctic Sea, bound for Algeria with £1m worth of timber from Finland, last radioed British coastguards on 29 July and its last confirmed location, through tracking systems, was off Portugal the following day.

Experts believe the ship is likely to be in Africa by now, but there was scepticism that the ship's disappearance signalled the arrival in Europe of the kind of piracy that has blighted the Gulf of Eden in recent years.

Nick Davis, of the Merchant Maritime Warfare Centre, said that while technically any incident when unauthorised people boarded a ship could be defined as piracy, a commercial dispute was the more likely explanation.

LINK

Speculation rife over missing ship - Aug 14th

It is a mystery that could grace the pages of a thriller novel.

A cargo ship carrying timber worth $1.8m (£1.1m) from Finland to Algeria is apparently briefly hijacked off
the coast of Sweden before continuing its journey through the English Channel - and then disappears.

Nothing has been heard from the Maltese-flagged Arctic Sea since its last recorded sighting on 30 July, and officials appear to have no idea where it could be.

If this event had occurred in the seas off east Africa, the finger would immediately have been pointed at Somalia's notorious pirates.

But the Arctic Sea disappeared while rounding the west coast of France, in what are considered to be the pirate-free shipping lanes of Europe.

And as a maritime hunt gets under way to find the 3,988-tonne vessel, speculation is rife over what might have led to the Arctic Sea's disappearance.

Was the ship carrying something other than timber, "something much more expensive and dangerous", as one expert put it?

Or is its disappearance down to some commercial dispute or even a quarrel between rival Russian mafia gangs, as other observers have suggested?

LINK

Investigators across Europe join search for lost Russian ship - Aug14th

The disappearance of a Russian-manned cargo ship in the Atlantic more than two weeks ago spawned a variety of theories and intriguing reports Thursday as the search drew in investigators from across Europe.

LINK

Pirates, Mafia and a Russian Ghost Ship

The maritime world was rife with speculation over the fate of an apparently hijacked ship which disappeared after passing through the English Channel.

Nothing had been heard from the 15 Russian crew of the Arctic Sea since it made a routine call to the Dover coast guard 16 days ago.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev yesterday ordered five warships to join the search, "now focused off the west coast of Africa", for the 3988-ton vessel carrying $2.2 million (AU$) worth of sawn timber.

LINK

Reports of ship's location prove false - Aug 15th

The mystery of the missing Russian freighter continued yesterday after reports it had been spotted in the Atlantic Ocean near the Cape Verde islands proved mistaken.

The disappearance of the Arctic Sea, and its 15-member Russian crew, has baffled authorities in Europe and North Africa. Moscow has sent warships to find it.

Portugal's Lusa news agency said the 4,000-tonne freighter was about 720 kilometres off the West African archipelago, while France said it had intelligence of a sighting that could match the Arctic Sea.

"There was information that a cargo ship similar to the one being searched for was spotted 400 nautical miles north of the island of Santo Antao," said Alexander Karpushin, Russia's ambassador to Cape Verde.

"However, this information did not prove to be true," he added, citing a meeting with the head of Cape Verde's armed forces.

LINK

[Squeezer]

Oh dang...

MOSCOW – For more than two weeks, the freighter Arctic Sea seemed to have vanished in the Atlantic Ocean's vastness, but officials said Tuesday they knew where it was all along and were just staying mum in order to bring a dangerous hijacking drama to a bloodless end.

A Russian naval vessel reached the Arctic Sea late Sunday in waters near Cape Verde, thousands of miles (kilometers) from the Algerian port it was to have docked at on Aug. 4. Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said Tuesday that eight suspected hijackers were in custody.

It was the first official confirmation that the ship had been attacked, after weeks of rumors and clues about why the vessel might have disappeared.

The Maritime Authority in Malta, where the Russian-crewed ship is registered, said in a statement late Tuesday that "The movements of the MV Arctic Sea were always known for several days, notwithstanding reports that the ship had 'disappeared.'"

Authorities in Finland, Malta and Sweden had agreed "not to disclose any sensitive information in order not to jeopardize the life and safety of the persons on board and the integrity of the ship," the statement said.

The ship left the Finnish port of Pietarsaari with a load of timber on July 21. More than a week later, Swedish police said they were investigating a report that masked men had raided the ship and beat the crew near the Swedish island of Gotland before speeding off 12 hours later.

The suspected hijackers — citizens of Estonia, Latvia and Russia — were arrested without a shot being fired, state news agencies quoted Serdyukov as saying. The ship's 15 crew members were safe and were taken aboard by the navy for questioning.

The motive for seizing the aging freighter remained unclear. Security and maritime experts said the Arctic Sea's mysterious four-week journey pointed to something other than piracy, with some suggesting state involvement or a secret cargo, possibly of nuclear materials.

Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/missing_ship

Turns out they were hiding it behind that iron curtain over there the whole time. :-)

[Miss Mia]

Turns out they were hiding it behind that iron curtain over there the whole time. :-)

They had to keep it secret because they're lacking on super pirate snipers.