The ship "Arctic sea"

[Erik Estrada]

Any thoughts on what is going on here then?

Is it pirates? sunk? seems mighty strange either way.....

[moleamol]

Almost as weird as this post being in this particular forum.

[TheEnd]

http://www.weebls-stuff.com/flash/413_somalia.swf

[Chrisgr31]

Not much interest in this thread which is a surprise. Odd that a ship of this size can just vanish!

[robinhood21]

At a guess, would say that it is quite easy to make the ships transponder (or whatever they call it) disappear. The ship however, 'tis a big ocean.










ETA: Shouldn't this be in the News forum?

Edited by robinhood21 on Thursday 13th August 00:12

[tank slapper]

It wouldn't be too hard to make that ship difficult to find, depending on how much help the pirates have from outside. The traffic around our coast is extremely heavy. If the ship were to switch off it's AIS transpoder, it would have to be found manually as it won't be broadcasting its location and identifying details. Here is the current traffic through the Dover straights. There are similar numbers or more through there constantly.

There will be coastal radar traces of it any time it goes near to a VTS area, and not having AIS active when near there will draw attention. Here is the last track of the ship. Once it has passed there, it could have set course anywhere and remained out of sight of most radar and therefore make the search area huge.

[JMGS4]

Perhaps pirated by Al Quaida to convert it to a floating bomb and sail it into a western port? One scenario that the Yanks are very afraid of....

[mattviatura]

^^

Yup, I thought 'The Afghan' as soon as I heard about this.

[Spiritual_Beggar]

Call me a crazy nut,

But,

I think there could be something more to this. I reckon Russian Mafia, or just organised gangs could have something to do with it. Was the timber the 'only' cargo on that ship?

Apparently gangs have been suspected of smuggling arms via ships out of Russian ports. Could this be a case of that?


(Mainly tin-foil stuff, but it makes for an interesting story )

[s3fella]

I'm thinking guns and nukes on board.

or Space Aliens and Bermuda Triangle shifted to France.

Unlikelly to be a failure of Russian / Maltese electrics.........

[JohnnyJones]

seems odd to take it unnecessarily through the channel. A trial run?

[tank slapper]

JohnnyJones said:

seems odd to take it unnecessarily through the channel. A trial run?

The other option is to go north round Scotland, which is a significantly longer route and there is much less traffic up there. It was probably easier to go through the channel and try to blend in with the other shipping there, and that appears to be what happened.

[collateral]

Definitely seems pretty odd, although I think people are probably reading a little too much into the Russian naval involvement - if one of our boats went missing wouldn't we send some ships to look for it? Doesn't make it some sort of nuclear conspiracy

[gamefreaks]

Looks like it has been hijacked:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/piracy/6...

'Operation Plumbat 2'?

[Spiritual_Beggar]

gamefreaks said:

Looks like it has been hijacked:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/piracy/6...

'Operation Plumbat 2'?

Well, that much at least is obvious

Hijacked by 'who' is the real question though.

The more reports and articles you read, the more this just doesn't quite add up. The Russian mobilisation is very interesting.

[Dover Nige]

The Telegraph said:

...Before collecting a cargo of sawn timber from the Finnish port of Pietarsaari on July 23, the Arctic Sea had been repaired over a two week period at the Pregol shipyard in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave notorious for smuggling and lawlessness...

[collateral]

Dover Nige said:

The Telegraph said:

...Before collecting a cargo of sawn timber from the Finnish port of Pietarsaari on July 23, the Arctic Sea had been repaired over a two week period at the Pregol shipyard in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave notorious for smuggling and lawlessness...

But I'm sure most Russian shipyards are pretty dodgy

[Spiritual_Beggar]

collateral said:

Dover Nige said:

The Telegraph said:

...Before collecting a cargo of sawn timber from the Finnish port of Pietarsaari on July 23, the Arctic Sea had been repaired over a two week period at the Pregol shipyard in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave notorious for smuggling and lawlessness...

But I'm sure most Russian shipyards are pretty dodgy

What I find most interesting out of this;

Assuming there is 'secret' cargo onboard, and again, assuming that's the reason for the Russian Warship mobilisations......How did the Russian Military know about the 'secret' cargo?

If it was Military cargo that was being transported, then surely they'd have had a Navy escort, or used a navy transport ship. Why the need to 'smuggle' it via a civilian ship.

[collateral]

Spiritual_Beggar said:

collateral said:

Dover Nige said:

The Telegraph said:

...Before collecting a cargo of sawn timber from the Finnish port of Pietarsaari on July 23, the Arctic Sea had been repaired over a two week period at the Pregol shipyard in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave notorious for smuggling and lawlessness...

But I'm sure most Russian shipyards are pretty dodgy

What I find most interesting out of this;

Assuming there is 'secret' cargo onboard, and again, assuming that's the reason for the Russian Warship mobilisations......How did the Russian Military know about the 'secret' cargo?

If it was Military cargo that was being transported, then surely they'd have had a Navy escort, or used a navy transport ship. Why the need to 'smuggle' it via a civilian ship.

I think the Russians have just taken the opportunity to be seen flexing it in front of Europe

[Spiritual_Beggar]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/articl...

They've found it! Apparently.

Edited by Spiritual_Beggar on Friday 14th August 18:33