RICH SINO

scrapped

General information

Course/Position

Latest news

Beached

Beached at Chittagong 19.01.22

arrived Chittagong Anchorage

arrived Chittagong Anchorage 14.01.22

Tanker stalled as Chinese master refuses to let Indian crew board

The 'Qian Tai 1' has been stuck for over seven weeks on the anchorage Kakinada, being moored in pos. 17° 1.34' N 082° 19.34' E, with two rival ship managers fighting over boarding an Indian master and crew. The ship is owned by the Hong Kong-based Taihua Ship Management and commercially controlled by the Star Dragon Shipping. It is under the technical management of China and Singapore-based Seacon Ships Management with a Seacon captain as master. In July, lawyers for a previously unknown Singapore based ship manager, the Oka Ship Management, petitioned the Andhra Pradesh High Court at Amravati to order Wang to allow a new Indian crew on board, with four officers including the captain as well as an Indian cook. No lawyer appeared for Seacon in the first legal round and the judge ruled on the basis of a ship management contract, affidavits and emails submitted by Oka. The judge accepted the allegations that the captain's resistance to the new Indian crew could cost the owner by delaying its departure for a load port in Indonesia, and that Oka had a valid ship management contract signed by the owner in June. The Oka management was incorporated less than a week before the alleged new ship management contract was signed. A lawyer for Oka told the court the owner would be initiating arbitration proceedings against Seacon over alleged breaches of contract. A ruling dated July 26, 2021, by judge Venkata Ramana ordered the captain to allow the new captain and his Indian crew on board but stopped short of ordering him to relinquish control. The vessel remained at anchor as ofSep 1, when Seacon had enlisted a new lawyer to argue its side. The legal petition listed Seacon as defendant plus the Kakinada port authority and the local commissioner of customs as pro forma defendants.