Post by Catsmate on Aug 21, 2019 11:17:46 GMT
How's that for a title?
The Ghost Ship and the Cannibal Rats.
A quickie that's been in my slush pile/General Notes for a few years, inspired by this story.
Firstly, it does seem odd that in an era of satellite communications and surveillance a ship nearly ninety metres long can be 'misplaced', even in the Atlantic. However it's a very big ocean and there are limited resources and an emphasis on keeping an eye on higher priorities. After all
MH-370 is still missing.
Back to the ship in question, the ill-fated MV Lyubov Orlova. She was built in 1976 in Vladivostok (wiki says Yugoslavia but appear to be wrong) as the 'Lyubovy Orlova' as a polar cruise ship, with ice reinforced hull (though not alas a nuclear power plant) and plodded along in this role for twenty-odd years. Refurbished in 1999 and 2002 she continued in the role of a cruise ship, though with new owners and her registration being changed from Russia to the Cook Islands, with occasional charters.
On 27 November 2006 the Lyubov Orlova ran aground at Deception Island, Antarctic and needed the services of a Spanish icebreaker to pull her free.
The interesting bit of the ship's life begins in September 2010 when she arrived in St. John’s harbour in Canada. There she was seized by the Canadian federal government on foot of a court order for recovery of monies owed.
The Russian owners of the ship denied any responsibility, declared they didn't want the ship back and eventually allowed her registry to lapse. She spent two years in St. John's slowly rusting and occasionally being graffitied. The authorities didn't want her, but did want payment for the berthing charges she was incurring, and tried to sell her. Eventually in February 2012 an offer of CAN$275,000 was made for the ship and she became the property of Neptune International Shipping. They planned to move her to the Dominican Republic to be scrapped.
On 2 March 2012 a team of engineers hired by the new owners arrived to assess the vessel. And promptly left, rapidly, refusing to set foot on her.
Rats. Hundreds of large, aggressive, rats.
Two years without upkeep and the ship had developed a new ecosystem; barnacles, starfish, seaweed, and rats. The inspection team recommended fumigation. However the owners wouldn't pay.
The team was so disturbed that they alerted the Canadian and American Coast Guards to the state of the vessel, just in case it wasn’t reported otherwise. Even the St. John’s Port Authority claimed to have no idea of the level of infestation, stating that, when complaints are made, measures were taken to eliminate the pests. Someone evidently neglected to pass word along.
Skip along to December 2012 and another ship, the tug Charlene Hunt enters the picture. She's been chartered to tow the Lyubov Orlova to the Dominican Republic for scrapping.
The ship and crew arrived in St. John's on 9 December and set to work "fixing up" the Orlova, i.e. stripping everything of value that wasn't welded on and selling it. Despite the well deserved reputation of the North Atlantic for being a bit wet and blowy in winter the owners "didn't foresee any problems coming up" with their plan to tow the 4,500t ship to the Dominican Republic. After what was probably an interesting xmas the ships set out on 23 January 2013.
Thirty hours later it was obvious that the plan wasn't going to work. Off Cape Race in Newfoundland the tow line snapped leaving the Lyubov Orlova drifting. The crew of the Charlene Hunt tried to reestablish a tow, but sea conditions made it impossible. So for a day the little tug (195t) stood by the empty ship, reporting to Marine Communication and Traffic Services regularly on their position. On 25 January she reported that the weather had further deteriorated and ice was building up on the Lyubov Orlova. At 6AM on 26 January the master of the Charlene Hunt radioed that they had fallen fourteen kilometres behind the Lyubov Orlova and couldn’t keep up with the ship as she moved with the wind and waves.
At 10:45AM that morning the Charlene Hunt began taking on water from damage incurred in the high seas and was escorted by CCGS Cape Roger to Cape Spear for repairs. These didn't happen; an assessment of the tug considered her deteriorated state dangerous and she was ordered to return to St. John’s.
Meanwhile, remember the Lyubov Orlova? She continued to drift, unattended, through the Atlantic. An offshore tug/supply ship named Atlantic Hawk reported sighting the ship in open water, 150km off of the Hibernia oil production platforms. This caused concern as people (and governments) generally don't like rogue ships crashing into their expensive fossil fuel extraction infrastructure, and the Atlantic Hawk took the Lyubov Orlova under tow on 30 January.
For forty four hours the Atlantic Hawk pulled the Lyubov Orlova to the north-east, away from the platforms (and witnesses...). Transport Canada then contracted the supply ship Maersk Challenger to take over the tow and bring the ship back to St. John’s.
Now things get murky. Well murkier.
On 2 February 2013 the Maersk Challenger took over the tow of the Lyubov Orlova and headed to St. John’s, around 450km away. Winds and seas were still bad. After less than three hours the emergency tow to the Lyubov Orlova broke, setting the ship lose again. After several further a ttempts to bring her back under tow, the Lyubov Orlova drifted outside of Canadian waters, into international waters. That's when Transport Canada (or someone else) decided that the ship was no longer a Canadian problem. The Lyubov Orlova continued to drift away, and the Maersk Challenger and Atlantic Hawk returned to their previous duties.
Was the loss of the towline really an accident or might it have been deliberate?
Suddenly people started getting interested. People became curious over what had happened to the Lyubov Orlova. Especially in Ireland, not eager for a visitation from what the media claimed was a ship "filled with cannibal rats". The Irish Coast Guard was put on alert.
Meanwhile in Canada the ship became a bit of a political hot potato with the Loyal Opposition in the Federal Parliament accusing the Conservative Government of "dropping the ball" by leaving the ship to drift off.
Transport Canada said it wasn’t their problem, it was the owners, and that the owner would therefore be responsible for anything that happened to or because of the ship. The owners were uninterested, and said they had their own problems to deal with; they were in debt because of a ship that they could no longer cash in on.
Then, on 23 February one of the Lyubov Orlova's emergency beacons had gone off (2,400km west of Ireland), with a second beacon reported on 8 (or 12) March (1,250km from the Kerry coast). As the beacons are supposed to only go off when they come in contact with water, it was assumed (and hoped) by the authorities that the ship had sunk. This was quite likely, since she wasn’t in great shape when she left St. John's and the North Atlantic is unforgiving, especially to ships that had been sitting derelict for two years.
Sighs of relief all around.
In Canada the Transportation Safety Board report was issued and blamed the master of the Charlene Hunt for having insufficiently prepared the tug and the ship and that the combination of the weaker Charlene Hunt and the strength of the sea had lead to the failure of the tow and loss of the Lyubov Orlova.
And there the story ends. Or does it?
There was some media speculation in Britain in January 2014, that the ship had been sighted nearing the coast of England. These runours were denied and debunked. Finally November 2017, again in the lower end of the British media, there was speculation that wreckage found buried in sand on the beach at Coronado in California might be the missing Lyubov Orlova, but again these were denied. There's no way the ship could have drifted around the world unnoticed.
Or could it?
Comments? Ideas? Suggestions? Requests?
The Ghost Ship and the Cannibal Rats.
A quickie that's been in my slush pile/General Notes for a few years, inspired by this story.
A ghost ship filled with cannibal rats is floating somewhere off the coast of Scotland, ready to crash ashore and unleash its disease-ridden cargo of starving rodents. And it's all because Canadian authorities let the Soviet-era nightmare liner loose in the North Atlantic, satisfied that it was no longer a threat to Canada.
MH-370 is still missing.
- This is an interesting point to bear in mind, even a small (supposedly) derelict ship is quite large and a useful base for somebody, be they Mad Scientists, Secret Government Projects, Alien Scouts or the ever popular Time Travellers.
Back to the ship in question, the ill-fated MV Lyubov Orlova. She was built in 1976 in Vladivostok (wiki says Yugoslavia but appear to be wrong) as the 'Lyubovy Orlova' as a polar cruise ship, with ice reinforced hull (though not alas a nuclear power plant) and plodded along in this role for twenty-odd years. Refurbished in 1999 and 2002 she continued in the role of a cruise ship, though with new owners and her registration being changed from Russia to the Cook Islands, with occasional charters.
- It's entirely likely that those charters were perfectly normal tourism and not covers for sinister goings on.
On 27 November 2006 the Lyubov Orlova ran aground at Deception Island, Antarctic and needed the services of a Spanish icebreaker to pull her free.
The interesting bit of the ship's life begins in September 2010 when she arrived in St. John’s harbour in Canada. There she was seized by the Canadian federal government on foot of a court order for recovery of monies owed.
- Just about everyone was owed. The charter company wanted a quarter-of-a-million dollars, as they'd had to cancel a cruise because the ship was mechanically unsound.
- The crew hadn't been paid in six months.
- Other creditors wanted payment for supplies provided to the vessel.
The Russian owners of the ship denied any responsibility, declared they didn't want the ship back and eventually allowed her registry to lapse. She spent two years in St. John's slowly rusting and occasionally being graffitied. The authorities didn't want her, but did want payment for the berthing charges she was incurring, and tried to sell her. Eventually in February 2012 an offer of CAN$275,000 was made for the ship and she became the property of Neptune International Shipping. They planned to move her to the Dominican Republic to be scrapped.
On 2 March 2012 a team of engineers hired by the new owners arrived to assess the vessel. And promptly left, rapidly, refusing to set foot on her.
Rats. Hundreds of large, aggressive, rats.
- Probably not mutated or otherwise effected by prior Sinister Experiments carried out on the ship.
- Assuming the rats were real and not merely faked to keep people off the ship...
Two years without upkeep and the ship had developed a new ecosystem; barnacles, starfish, seaweed, and rats. The inspection team recommended fumigation. However the owners wouldn't pay.
The team was so disturbed that they alerted the Canadian and American Coast Guards to the state of the vessel, just in case it wasn’t reported otherwise. Even the St. John’s Port Authority claimed to have no idea of the level of infestation, stating that, when complaints are made, measures were taken to eliminate the pests. Someone evidently neglected to pass word along.
- Or wanted the ship quietly left alone, for some sinister purpose. An Aquatic Earth Reptile base perhaps?
Skip along to December 2012 and another ship, the tug Charlene Hunt enters the picture. She's been chartered to tow the Lyubov Orlova to the Dominican Republic for scrapping.
- Interestingly the Charlene Hunt’s journey to St. John’s was not uneventful. Shortly after leaving New Bedford in Connecticut, she suffered mechanical problems and began taking on water. Eventually the engine room pumps couldn't compensate and the master had to issue a mayday call. The Canadian Coast Guard intervened, airlifted two crew members off, and escorted the tug into Halifax. After conducting some repairs to stop the leak, the Charlene Hunt set out from Halifax.
- It made twenty kilometres before fuel filter and generator problems necessitated a detour to Sydney where further repairs were made.
- Almost certainly this problems were normal maritime matters, not sabotage to enable suspicious items to be removed from the Lyubov Orlova.
The ship and crew arrived in St. John's on 9 December and set to work "fixing up" the Orlova, i.e. stripping everything of value that wasn't welded on and selling it. Despite the well deserved reputation of the North Atlantic for being a bit wet and blowy in winter the owners "didn't foresee any problems coming up" with their plan to tow the 4,500t ship to the Dominican Republic. After what was probably an interesting xmas the ships set out on 23 January 2013.
Thirty hours later it was obvious that the plan wasn't going to work. Off Cape Race in Newfoundland the tow line snapped leaving the Lyubov Orlova drifting. The crew of the Charlene Hunt tried to reestablish a tow, but sea conditions made it impossible. So for a day the little tug (195t) stood by the empty ship, reporting to Marine Communication and Traffic Services regularly on their position. On 25 January she reported that the weather had further deteriorated and ice was building up on the Lyubov Orlova. At 6AM on 26 January the master of the Charlene Hunt radioed that they had fallen fourteen kilometres behind the Lyubov Orlova and couldn’t keep up with the ship as she moved with the wind and waves.
At 10:45AM that morning the Charlene Hunt began taking on water from damage incurred in the high seas and was escorted by CCGS Cape Roger to Cape Spear for repairs. These didn't happen; an assessment of the tug considered her deteriorated state dangerous and she was ordered to return to St. John’s.
- Back to St. John's again. Hmmm...
Meanwhile, remember the Lyubov Orlova? She continued to drift, unattended, through the Atlantic. An offshore tug/supply ship named Atlantic Hawk reported sighting the ship in open water, 150km off of the Hibernia oil production platforms. This caused concern as people (and governments) generally don't like rogue ships crashing into their expensive fossil fuel extraction infrastructure, and the Atlantic Hawk took the Lyubov Orlova under tow on 30 January.
- Oh the scenario just writes itself. Was the Atlantic Hawk merely in the right place at the right time? If so then the scenario is basically "board the rat infested ship in really rough seas" (with bonuses and salvage money at stake). Then, of course, things get weird. Go watch Ghost Ship, Ghostboat or any of the multitude of nautical horror films for ideas. TARDIS crew is optional, as is a Mysterious Artefact that ships it departing.
- On the other hand the whole thing might have been planned to allow a highly trained (though probably not too well informed) team of UNIT operatives to board the Lyubov Orlova safety in international waters where w small nuclear detonation wouldn't be that noticeable. Or maybe it's a desperate improvisation after a shoestring budget plan went horribly wrong.
- Anyway there's a ship to be boarded. The rats are probably just numerous, aggressive and hungry. There's no evidence of intelligence, augmentation or a hive mind.
For forty four hours the Atlantic Hawk pulled the Lyubov Orlova to the north-east, away from the platforms (and witnesses...). Transport Canada then contracted the supply ship Maersk Challenger to take over the tow and bring the ship back to St. John’s.
Now things get murky. Well murkier.
On 2 February 2013 the Maersk Challenger took over the tow of the Lyubov Orlova and headed to St. John’s, around 450km away. Winds and seas were still bad. After less than three hours the emergency tow to the Lyubov Orlova broke, setting the ship lose again. After several further a ttempts to bring her back under tow, the Lyubov Orlova drifted outside of Canadian waters, into international waters. That's when Transport Canada (or someone else) decided that the ship was no longer a Canadian problem. The Lyubov Orlova continued to drift away, and the Maersk Challenger and Atlantic Hawk returned to their previous duties.
Was the loss of the towline really an accident or might it have been deliberate?
- Possibly a mind controlled seaman or two?
Suddenly people started getting interested. People became curious over what had happened to the Lyubov Orlova. Especially in Ireland, not eager for a visitation from what the media claimed was a ship "filled with cannibal rats". The Irish Coast Guard was put on alert.
Meanwhile in Canada the ship became a bit of a political hot potato with the Loyal Opposition in the Federal Parliament accusing the Conservative Government of "dropping the ball" by leaving the ship to drift off.
Transport Canada said it wasn’t their problem, it was the owners, and that the owner would therefore be responsible for anything that happened to or because of the ship. The owners were uninterested, and said they had their own problems to deal with; they were in debt because of a ship that they could no longer cash in on.
Then, on 23 February one of the Lyubov Orlova's emergency beacons had gone off (2,400km west of Ireland), with a second beacon reported on 8 (or 12) March (1,250km from the Kerry coast). As the beacons are supposed to only go off when they come in contact with water, it was assumed (and hoped) by the authorities that the ship had sunk. This was quite likely, since she wasn’t in great shape when she left St. John's and the North Atlantic is unforgiving, especially to ships that had been sitting derelict for two years.
Sighs of relief all around.
In Canada the Transportation Safety Board report was issued and blamed the master of the Charlene Hunt for having insufficiently prepared the tug and the ship and that the combination of the weaker Charlene Hunt and the strength of the sea had lead to the failure of the tow and loss of the Lyubov Orlova.
And there the story ends. Or does it?
There was some media speculation in Britain in January 2014, that the ship had been sighted nearing the coast of England. These runours were denied and debunked. Finally November 2017, again in the lower end of the British media, there was speculation that wreckage found buried in sand on the beach at Coronado in California might be the missing Lyubov Orlova, but again these were denied. There's no way the ship could have drifted around the world unnoticed.
Or could it?
Comments? Ideas? Suggestions? Requests?