At first it seemed a mystery to rank alongside that of the Marie Celeste or other ghost ships. Earlier this month a Chinese fishing crew came across a completely deserted ferry floating in the East China Sea.
Wang Weiping, the skipper of the fishing boat that found the liner early on Thursday 300 nautical miles (around 555km) from land, said the ship’s exterior had some marks that suggested a collision but there were no signs of life.
“We got on the ship and yelled if there was anyone inside the ship, but nobody answered us,” Wang told the news portal Thepaper.cn.
But when the crew climbed on board the interior was in good condition, with well-maintained fittings and equipment.
Thai ferry disaster boat was not up to standard, investigators say
The crew contacted the Maritime Safety Administration in Zhejiang, the crew’s home province, in the hope of solving the mystery.
On Wednesday this week they finally got an answer – and luckily it appeared that there was a relatively benign explanation for what had happened.
Thepaper’s report said the authority had checked through “various channels” and concluded that the second-hand ship had been bought by a Malaysian shipping company from a firm in South Korea.
The fishing crew are now towing the ferry back to land.
It had hired another firm to tow the ship to Malaysia, but the rope had snapped when the tugboat encountered heavy seas en route.
The name of the Malaysian firm that bought the ship was not included in the report, but the authorities in Zhejiang said they had been in contact with their counterparts in Korea about the incident.