Cargo Ship

An Indian court on Monday ordered two Italian marines held in jail while officials investigate last month's killing of two Indian fishermen at sea. In an incident that has tested India's relations with Italy, the marines are accused of shooting the fishermen Feb. 15 after mistaking them for pirates off India's southwest coast. The marines had been providing security on a cargo ship. A court in the southern state of Kerala on Monday remanded the Italians to custody for another two weeks and ordered they be moved to jail from a guest house in the southern city of Kochi, where...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Iran and an American-led naval coalition each said Thursday they responded to a distress call by a US-flagged cargo ship that came under fire from gunmen in the Gulf of Oman a day earlier. Armed guards aboard the 488-foot Maersk Texas thwarted the attack northeast of the Emirati port of Fujairah, Danish shipper AP Moller-Maersk said. The attack happened not far from the tense waters of the Strait of Hormuz, a key transit point for a fifth of the world's oil. The company, based in Copenhagen, said armed attackers in multiple pirate skiffs raced straight toward...

A piracy monitoring official says pirates off Nigeria's coast have attacked a cargo ship and shot dead its captain and chief engineer. Cyrus Mody of the International Maritime Bureau said the attack happened early Monday morning, about 110 nautical miles south of Lagos. Mody says the ship tried to escape but both the captain and chief engineer were shot dead during a continuous firefight. He offered no other details. Nigerian officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

The captain and the navigator of a ship that ran aground on a New Zealand reef last year in what authorities have called the country's worst maritime environmental disaster were each sentenced Friday to seven months in jail. About 400 tons of fuel oil spilled on Astrolabe Reef near Tauranga and at least 2,000 sea birds died in the Oct. 5 grounding of the cargo ship Rena. Judge Robert Wolff from the Tauranga District Court sentenced the ship's captain, Mauro Balomaga, and navigating officer, Leonil Relon, both of the Philippines.

CARACAS - A Greek-owned cargo ship caught fire in the Caribbean off Venezuela’s coast yesterday, killing nine crew members and injuring five others, Venezuelan authorities said. The Aegean Wind was carrying more than 37,000 tons of iron ore from Brazil to Houston when a blaze broke out in the mess hall before dawn local time, according to the vessel’s owner, Piraeus-based Atlantic Bulk Carrier Management Ltd. The ship was about 100 miles north of Venezuela at the time, and about 34 miles from Margarita Island.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Iran and an American-led naval coalition each said Thursday they responded to a distress call by a US-flagged cargo ship that came under fire from gunmen in the Gulf of Oman a day earlier. Armed guards aboard the 488-foot Maersk Texas thwarted the attack northeast of the Emirati port of Fujairah, Danish shipper AP Moller-Maersk said. The attack happened not far from the tense waters of the Strait of Hormuz, a key transit point for a fifth of the world's oil. The company, based in Copenhagen, said armed attackers in multiple pirate skiffs raced...

NAIROBI - Striking into the heavily patrolled Gulf of Aden, Somali pirates seized a British-flagged chemical tanker - the first merchant vessel to be hijacked there in nearly six months, the same day that a ship was taken by brigands in the Indian Ocean, officials said yesterday. The double hijacking late Monday shows that, a year after an international naval armada began deploying off Somalia to protect shipping, piracy remains a problem. Monday’s attacks occurred more than 1,000 miles apart, indicating the wide range of territory prowled by pirates and underscoring the difficulty of...

The German owner of a cargo ship suspected of delivering weapons to Syria says Turkish customs officials found the vessel to have no unlawful cargo aboard. Shipping company W. Bockstiegel Reederei said Wednesday custom officers in Turkey's eastern Mediterranean port of Iskenderun finished to unload and search the Atlantic Cruiser, finding only civilian goods. A customs official in Iskenderun, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government rules, confirmed that "nothing illegal" was found on the ship.

A cargo ship loaded with cement sank in the central Philippines on Sunday and another vessel carrying iron ore went down off the country's eastern coast, the coast guard said. All 32 crewmen from both ships were rescued. The ship carrying iron ore, the Panamanian-registered M/V Sun Spirit, began to list Saturday off Catanduanes province and sent a distress signal. Though coast guard officials immediately deployed three ships and a helicopter for a search and rescue, it was a Philippine cargo ship and a fishing boat that saved the crew of 12...

The captain and the navigator of a ship that ran aground on a New Zealand reef last year in what authorities have called the country's worst maritime environmental disaster were each sentenced Friday to seven months in jail. About 400 tons of fuel oil spilled on Astrolabe Reef near Tauranga and at least 2,000 sea birds died in the Oct. 5 grounding of the cargo ship Rena. Judge Robert Wolff from the Tauranga District Court sentenced the ship's captain, Mauro Balomaga, and navigating officer, Leonil Relon, both of the Philippines.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The launch of a privately owned cargo rocket heading to the International Space Station was aborted at the last second on Saturday morning. The rocket's nine engines had ignited, but computers detected a discrepancy and shut them down. The next launching attempt will be Tuesday morning at the earliest. The rocket and its cargo capsule, both built by Space Exploration Technologies Corp. of Hawthorne, Calif., represent an important step in NASA's evolution to rely more heavily on commercial companies for its human spaceflight program.

A private U.S. company has set a new date for launching a cargo ship to the International Space Station. Space Exploration Technologies Corp., better known as SpaceX, said Friday it was now aiming for a May 19 liftoff of its Falcon rocket and Dragon capsule. It will be the first commercial cargo run to the space station. The launch of the supply ship had been scheduled for Monday but was delayed for more software testing. The test flight is already three months late. NASA used to stockpile the space station through the shuttles, but the fleet was retired last summer.

The German owner of a cargo ship suspected of delivering weapons to Syria says Turkish customs officials found the vessel to have no unlawful cargo aboard. Shipping company W. Bockstiegel Reederei said Wednesday custom officers in Turkey's eastern Mediterranean port of Iskenderun finished to unload and search the Atlantic Cruiser, finding only civilian goods. A customs official in Iskenderun, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government rules, confirmed that "nothing illegal" was found on the ship.

An Indian court on Monday ordered two Italian marines held in jail while officials investigate last month's killing of two Indian fishermen at sea. In an incident that has tested India's relations with Italy, the marines are accused of shooting the fishermen Feb. 15 after mistaking them for pirates off India's southwest coast. The marines had been providing security on a cargo ship. A court in the southern state of Kerala on Monday remanded the Italians to custody for another two weeks and ordered they be moved to jail from a guest house in the...

Indian police on Sunday detained two Italian marine security guards for allegedly shooting to death two Indian fishermen they mistook for pirates. The suspects were brought ashore in southern India and placed in custody for further questioning, police said. The two Italians were part of a six-member security team on the cargo ship the Enrica Lexie, and are suspected of firing Wednesday on an Indian fishing boat they mistook for a pirate ship off Kerala state. Two fishermen were killed instantly.

An Italian cargo ship fired at an Indian fishing boat that it mistook for a pirate vessel, killing two fishermen, India's navy said Thursday. The ship identified as the Enrica Lexie fired at the fishermen in waters off India's southern Kerala state on Wednesday, a navy statement said. The Indian coast guard and navy vessels escorted the Italian ship to the nearby port city of Kochi and were questioning the captain and crew. The owner of the fishing vessel, who goes by the single name Freddy, said Thursday the firing was unprovoked.

HONOLULU - Three members of a Canadian family attempting their first voyage across the Pacific in a sailboat were left adrift Tuesday in rough seas hundreds of miles from land when their mast broke. And as they were being rescued, seven hours later, the swell from the arriving cargo ship capsized their vessel, tossing them into cold water. As the sailboat was destroyed, 9-year-old West James prepared for the worst. "We're going to die," he said, according to his father, Bradley James, 32. The father and son, along with Bradley's brother Mitchell, 29, hit a series of storms...

Russia's ambassador to Britain says he's hailed the effort of Prince William and Royal Air Force colleagues to rescue crew members of a sunken cargo ship. William, an RAF search and rescue co-pilot, was deployed in gale force winds early on Sunday, after the Swanland cargo ship sank in the Irish Sea. All eight members of the crew were Russian. Two sailors were rescued by William's helicopter, but one person was found dead and five others remain missing. In a letter, Russian Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko said Monday that the two men were saved thanks...

Francis McDonald is not an actor. He knows the seven seas better than the silver screen. Still, he was hoping yesterday that he might get a role in an upcoming Tom Hanks film. "It would be an honor to be cast in the film," he said. "The chance, like anything in this business, is a long shot. " McDonald, vice president of operations at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy in Bourne, was one of more than 40 people to audition for four parts in Columbia Pictures' planned film about the 2009 hijacking of the cargo ship Maersk Alabama, starring Hanks as captured...

A piracy monitoring official says pirates off Nigeria's coast have attacked a cargo ship and shot dead its captain and chief engineer. Cyrus Mody of the International Maritime Bureau said the attack happened early Monday morning, about 110 nautical miles south of Lagos. Mody says the ship tried to escape but both the captain and chief engineer were shot dead during a continuous firefight. He offered no other details. Nigerian officials could not be immediately reached for comment.