You couldn't pay me to take this ship somewhere.
The missing cargo ship has been found! Not that it reveals anything about what happened:
A cargo ship missing since late last month with its Russian crew of 15 and $2 million worth of lumber was located on Monday 300 miles off West Africa’s Cape Verde, the Russia Defense Ministry reported. … it vanished seemingly without a trace off the coast of Portugal in late July. It was not immediately clear how the ship remained undetected for so long, or how it was lost in the first place.
Uhh… let’s go to the Russsian defense minister:
“The Arctic Sea was discovered at 1 a.m. Moscow time today, 300 miles off the Cape Verde islands,” Mr. Serdyukov said. “All crew members are alive, and they are feeling well. They were not under armed control,” he said.
Wait, what? The Cape Verde islands are a bit far from the ship’s last reporter position off Portugal (former colonizer of Cape Verde … coincidence?) which is about 2,000 miles away from the islands off the coast of West Africa.
As an aside, I enjoy that Mr. Serdukov made sure to say they are “feeling well.” Feeling well, as in, their ship disappeared for nearly a month, but don’t worry, they’re doing fine? Or that they’re doing alright because it’s not like one of their crew members turned out to be an axe murderer? Or that they’re “feeling well” because at least they weren’t captured by Somalia pirates, as was rumored?
It’s like a campfire ghost story–what happened to the ship’s crew to make them disappear? Nobody knows.
Whether or not modern-day pirates were involved, something strange befell the Arctic Sea, which was flying a Maltese flag, as it headed into the Atlantic on July 31 en route to a port in Algeria.
I guesss it missed Algeria as well. Apparently, not the best navigators are piloting this ship.
More backstory after the jump, including the bizarre Swedish drug raid:
The disappearance followed an apparent raid on the ship several days earlier as it was traversing Swedish waters. On July 24, the ship’s captain radioed its Finnish-based operator, Sochart, claiming that 8 to 12 armed men had raided the vessel ostensibly to search for drugs. The crew was bound and blindfolded, and some were beaten, he said.
Then, for unknown reasons, the men left after 12 hours, according to the captain, speeding away in a small boat. The ship then continued along through the Baltic Sea and the Straits of Dover between France and Britain out into the Atlantic, where communication with the vessel was lost.
Tags: Arctic Sea, Cape Verde islands, Portugal, Russia, ship disappearance, Sweden