Tankers
Mystery surrounds beached product tanker with no crew onboard
Social media in West Africa is trying to piece together what happened to the product tanker Tamaya 1, which drifted ashore today near Robertsport on the northern Liberian coast.
Nobody was onboard when the ship hit sandy beach this morning. The vessel’s last AIS signal was from 12 days ago, near Dakar.
With piracy in the region high at the moment, speculation is mounting that the crew of the 1,441-dwt vessel have been taken hostage.
The 1980-built ship is managed by Sodatra out of Dakar. Its classification has been withdrawn as it was overdue for a survey, leading others to speculate that the Panama-flagged ship had simply been abandoned.