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Chinese and Russian authorities were actively advancing salvage efforts for the 'An Yang 2', which remained hard aground since Feb 9 near Nevelsk, on Russia's Sakhalin Island. A Chinese task force recently arrived in the Sakhalin Oblast to consult with local Russian government officials and rescue agencies to coordinate the ship's salvage operation. Both sides have signed a letter of intent regarding the oil removal, with further efforts underway to draft the next phase of the salvage plan. Staff from the Chinese consulate boarded the vessel after it ran aground to visit the crew. As of now, all 20 crew members remained in good health, maintaining smooth communication with the outside world and having sufficient supplies of food and drinking water. The vessel was carrying approximately 50 tons of diesel and 700 tons of heavy fuel oil. No pollution has been detected in the surrounding waters following the incident. Report with photos: http://en.people.cn/n3/2025/0331/c90000-20296198.html

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) reported a fire aboard the cargo vessel 'Castphill XV' on the early morning of March 30. 2025,while the vessel was sailing in waters northwest of Limbones Island, Nasugbu, Batangas, Philippines. At approximately 4:27 a.m. LT, the BRP 'Boracay' rescued seven crew members, including the captain, who had suffered minor injuries. Later, five more crew members were rescued by the Coast Guard Sub-Station (CGSS) Maragondon. Upon the arrival at Pier 15 in the South Harbor, Manila, the 'Boracay 'handed over the rescued crew members to the Coast Guard Medical Dispensary for further evaluation. The PCG has launched an investigation to determine the cause of the fire. Report with photos: https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/twelve-rescued-from-burning-cargo-ship-in-manila-bay

The "Ramonde" in its current state represents an environmental hazard, as there are still around 8.000 liters of diesel fuel in the tanks of the destroyed yacht and a significant amount of oil in the ship's engines. The firefighting operation on the luxury yacht "Ramonda", which caught fire on March 27 at around 6 p.m. in the Portonovi marina in Kumbor, ended on the night of March 29, when the wreck towed from Kumbor to the Adriatic 42 shipyard in Bijela. The wreck has been secured along the operational shore and surrounded by a an oil boom to prevent the spread of any spills of oil, petroleum, and other harmful substances from what remained of the hull. On March 30 the navigation safety inspector Captain Grujica Dudić issued a decision prohibiting any attempt to remove the wrec to dry land or cut it up, until the Maritime Safety and Port Management Administration (UPSUL), the Kotor Harbour Master's Office and the Ministry of Maritime Affairs have issued a statement on the matter in accordance with the jurisdiction of these bodies. Given that the structural integrity of the rest of the hull of the "Ramonde" has been greatly damaged and weakened by the destruction by fire, any attempt to remove the ship to shore using the travel lift at the Adriatic 42 shipyard could literally disintegrate the wreck, leading to fuel and oil spills and an ecological disaster. Therefore, the Navigation Safety Inspectorate requests that all necessary measures be taken beforehand to pump out the fuel from the wreck, that is, that UPSUL, the Port Authority and the Ministry of Maritime Affairs adopt adequate solutions within their jurisdiction on how to further deal with the remains of the luxury yacht, which, until a few days ago, was worth around 10 million euros. The yacht is owned by the company "Millennium Team" doo from Belgrade. The police are investigating the causes of the fire on the yacht in the elite Portonovi marina, and the actions of its crew were also under scrutiny, because there were no crew members on board at the time the fire broke out. On the other hand, the action of extinguishing the fire and attempting to rescue the yacht itself showed a series of shortcomings and poor coordination between parts of the national chain for interventions in cases of emergencies at sea, starting from the untimely notification of UPSUL, through the failure to appear on site while the yacht was being rescued by the director of that Administration and the port captain in Kotor, the lack of a clear and unambiguous chain of command for the action of rescuing endangered property at sea by the commander on site, the lukewarm and inadequate reaction of the Ministry of Maritime Affairs, the absence of any reaction and action by the National Committee for Search and Rescue at Sea, to the transfer of the greatest burden of the extinguishing action and responsibility for it to the Herceg Novi Municipal Protection and Rescue Service, which is neither adequately equipped nor trained for such complicated interventions of extinguishing fires on ships. Reports with photos: https://en.vijesti.me/news-b/society/752163/remains-of-a-destroyed-yacht-towed-to-white--dry-docking-or-cutting-prohibited-until-the-authorities-make-a-statement https://en.vijesti.me/news-b/society/752110/The-yacht-was-flown-under-the-flag-of-a-Caribbean-country--the-ship-that-burned-down-was-registered-to-a-company-linked-to-the-regime-in-Serbia.?utm_source=vijesti&utm_medium=article_related&utm_campaign=article_intext_related

The 'Fugro Mercator' has been successful refloated at the north coast of island of Elba. On March 28 the company Fugro said that the vessel was safely towed back to the port of Portoferraio and was placed at the shiplift of the Esaom Cesa shipyard to be taken out of the water for repairs. The grounding on March 22 had caused no injuries and no damage to the environment. An investigation was ongoing to determine what caused the vessel to run aground. The 'Fugro Mercator' had been performing survey work for the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA) as part of the Italian government’s Marine Ecosystem Restoration (MER) Project under the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which aims to restore marine habitats, update the national system for observing marine and coastal ecosystems, as well as map marine habitats across Italian waters. Furgo is working alongside Italian partners Poliservizi Srl and Prisma. In addition to the surveys, two seabed tsunami early-warning stations in the Sardinian Channel and the South Ionian Sea will be included. Fugro was working with the Italian government to ensure the survey work goes uninterrupted after the grounding incident. In this regard, Fugro has committed to dispatch another survey vessel, the 'Fugro Helmert', which will sail to the Mediterranean to pick up the project and will minimize the overall impact of the incident. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHKPPGcTkV8

11 years after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, the latest underwater search campaign, launched at the end of March 2025 by the American company Ocean Infinity, has been suspended. The 'Armada 7806', tasked with exploring the seabed in the southern Indian Ocean, is now heading to the port of Singapore with an ETA as of April 4. This suspension does not signal the end of operations: a new phase could begin in October, after the southern hemisphere winter, with increased resources. The final green light from the Malaysian government was given on March 20, 2025. The contract with Ocean Infinity, which was already involved in the 2018 search, provides for a payment of $70 million solely in the event of the discovery of the wreck of the Boeing 777. The exploration area covers 15,000 km², more than 2,000 km from the Australian coast, in a particularly hostile region marked by powerful currents and unpredictable weather. The choice of this area was based on new analyses, notably those of Captain Patrick Blelly and aeronautics expert Jean-Luc Marchand. Their study, presented in 2023, suggested that the plane may have intentionally flown south until its last satellite signal. These conclusions have allowed the search to be refocused on a previously unexplored area. Flight MH370, which departed from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing, disappeared from civilian radar screens on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board—including 153 Chinese, 43 Malaysians, four French, as well as Australian, Indian, American, and Dutch passengers. Only a few pieces of debris, washed up on the shores of the Indian Ocean, have been formally identified as belonging to the aircraft. The main wreckage and the black boxes remain missing. For experts, recovering the flight recorders would provide access to the final moments in the cabin as decisive elements in finally shedding light on the circumstances of the disappearance. While the mission has been suspended, it has not been abandoned. Ocean Infinity has not yet released the results obtained, but a resumption of the search is planned for the fall of 2025. This time, a larger vessel and more favourable weather could allow the exploration to continue under better conditions.