Hacker News Reader

Comment by Terr_ | Hacker News Reader

> Spurning the obvious solution of a return to Russia, where she loaded at Kandalaksha in late August, the damaged vessel embarked on an odyssey of attempted entry to European ports, beginning at the Norwegian anchorage of Tromsø

This needs more explanation, does this mean the captain refused? Or Russian port authorities refused? Or they just... chose to limp in a particular direction?

From another article [0]:

> Not long after leaving the Russian port of Kandalaksha in late August, the general cargo vessel ran aground in a storm in Norwegian waters and a Port State inspection in Norway confirmed cracks in the hull and damage to the ship’s propeller and rudder.

[0] https://theloadstar.com/baltic-ports-bar-damaged-ruby-now-in...

View on HN

That article fills in a lot of blanks for me:

"Over the weekend, MV Ruby was also denied access to the Strait of Denmark, the entrance to the Baltic which would have allowed it to offload its dangerous cargo at a Russian port.

According to Danish news reports, on Friday a pilot was to be allocated the following day, but when the time came, authorities appeared to have changed tack.

'The ship is not going to have a pilot tonight, and the latest I’ve heard is that it’s in Norwegian waters,' DanPilot press officer Anne Heinze told DR Nyheder over the weekend.

Instead, MV Ruby is apparently making its way toward the Channel, with Malta-flagged anchor handler Amber II maintaining a distance of around one kilometre...

Though the vessel was able to limp some 1,600km around the Norwegian coast, it now faces a fraught voyage through the Channel, past Spain and the Strait of Gibraltar and onward to Malta through two of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

And there are few good choices ahead for the vessel’s crew: should MV Ruby sink, the cargo will likely cause enormous environmental damage, including algal blooms which choke swathes of ocean life, and could lead to a shipping exclusion zone to contain the spread of pollution."

> This needs more explanation, does this mean the captain refused? Or Russian port authorities refused? Or they just... chose to limp in a particular direction?

The ship ran aground between Norway and Russia, seeked emergency shelter in Tromsø. The ship has damanges on it propellors and rudder. It anchored up near Tromsø for while until the port authorities and governments told the ship to leave due to security concern. Basically the ship stayed outside a small populated island, and it was determined the island would be blown flat if something happened.

The Norwegian government are likely extra nerveous about this, just a small amount of the same stuff was used to blow up the government quarter in Oslo in the terrorist attack by Anders Brevik.

Presumably the ship tried to get to another port elsehwhere, but got into more mechanical trouble.

The place "near" Tromsø where it anchored is in the middle of the city now.

For this who don't know the place: the city is on an island, facing the mainland. There's a suburb on the mainland, connected to the city with a bridge and a tunnel. The ship anchored between the bridge and the tunnel.

It was allowed entry to Tromsø and stayed there for a few days without repairs.

Would you want to be a captain of an EU registered ship stuck in Russia for an indeterminate amount of time with limited ability to pay for (sanctions) repairs of an uncertain nature?

Of course I have no real info on why but it does seem plausible that returning would be unattractive.

> Would you want to be a captain of an EU registered ship stuck in Russia for an indeterminate amount of time with limited ability to pay for (sanctions) repairs of an uncertain nature?

Your hypothesis is quickly rejected/proven to be bullshit by the fact that the travel distance that the ship took after being rejected by Norway was greater than the distance it would need to take to get to a Russian port.

And instead the ship planted itself where? Right in the middle of the English channel? We're talking about hitting ports from Norway, Lithuania, and now UK/France/Belgium?

So the ship is legitimately damaged in a grounding in a storm.

The ship goes to nearest port for repairs. But when the nature of the cargo is understood, it is asked to leave.

It chooses to head south to Russia via the Baltic instead of north into the artic. A reasonable safer course.

Then Denmark denies it passage through the straights into the Baltic, so it now has to either head north again or carry on.

It arranges to get to Malta, a place that makes its business in ship repairs.

Seems reasonable actually.

I'm not arguing against physical geography - I'm stating that it might in the current political climate be a lot easier to get a European flagged ship repaired somewhere in (political) Europe as opposed to Russia.

I assume the Murmansk ports told them they won't get back in (after all no other port will, why would they?)

What do you think they should do, camp in international waters outside Murmansk in a dead-end of the Arctic, hoping a Russian port authority relents, until winter comes in full force and they're ultrafucked rather than just a bit fucked? Have you looked at a map?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com