LOGBOEK - JOURNAL DE BORD

Rim master in SOS

The master of a hijacked North Korea-flagged ship has pleaded for help as he told his wife that Somali pirates are holding the 10 crew members at gunpoint.

The Syrian brother of the 4,800-dwt Rim’s captain fears the captors “may kill someone” if a ransom demand, currently $4m, is not met as he contemplates selling his own house to finance the payment.

Mohammad Abdullah Alal, master of the 1973-built general cargoship, managed to telephone his wife on Wednesday to relay the pirates’ message, telling her “they are not kidding” and “they have guns at our heads”. Alal’s brother Mostafa told TradeWinds on Thursday that the pirates would not allow his brother to speak Arabic with his wife and he was not allowed to give much information on the ship or crew.

The 40-year-old father of two asked that his brother contact international media and shipping companies to plead for assistance in freeing the ship and its crew of nine Syrians and one Romanian seized in the Gulf of Aden on 3 February.

In an impassioned plea, Mostafa Alal wrote in an e-mail: “I am calling all of my associates and friends in the sea business...and any human who knows Somali or have a line or way or can contact [the pirates] to support me for affranchising my brother...and his buddies the crew.”

The ship’s Romania-based manager Rami Mustafa earlier told TradeWinds that the pirates have demanded a ransom of $4m but that this would be impossible for the owner to make up (Rim pirates demand $4m ransom). Alal said a much smaller counter offer has been made.

“I am willing to pay $50,000. I will do my best, even sell my house,” he said by telephone from his Tartous-based shipping agency, Atlantis Marine.

Alal said his brother has been maser of the Rim for around three months but has been at sea since he was fourteen years old as the family is from the Syrian island of Arwad where “almost everyone is a seafarer”, he said.

Numerous shipping databases list the ship as owned by White Sea Shipping of Tripoli, Libya. The Syrian manager Rami Mustafa claimed to TradeWinds, however, that it ceased to be Libyan owned about three months ago with the current owner registered in Washington DC.

Alal said his understanding is that the Libyan owner had the ship docked in Libya for a year or so as he was unable to pay for repairs and that Mustafa agreed to assume management and have the ship repaired.

The vessel was en route to Kandla, India with a cargo of clay and was due to be scrapped in India. Mustafa said its maximum scrap value is about $300,000, the same as the maximum value of its cargo.