Nave-Atropos

Navios Maritime made several sale & leaseback deals for their Korean vessels, the first one including 3 x LR1 (“Nave Cielo” 75/2007 Stx, “Nave Ariadne” 75/2007 Stx, & “Nave Atropos” 75/2013 Sungdong) and 3 x MR2 (“Bougainville” 51/2013 Stx, “Nave Equator” 50/2009 Spp & “Nave Pyxis” 50/2014 Dae Sun) which were sold for USD 90,8 mill enbloc to Chinese buyers with an average of 6,4 years T/C back.

In the evening of Jan 17, 2014, the "Nave Atropos" was attacked 115 nm South of Salalah, Oman, off Somalia, being enroute from Fujairah. Pirates in a skiff, launched from a mother vessel, approached and fired with small arms upon the product tanker whose master raised alarm, increased speed, altered course, activated SSAS, contacted UKMTO while the non-essential crew members mustered in the citadel. The on board armed security team returned the fire. The pirates ignored the deterrence and continued their approach, firing at the ship. The robust response from the embarked team was eventually enough to encourage the pirate skiff to return to the safety of its dhow mother vessel, allowing the tanker to continue safely on its transit, reporting the incident to relevant authorities. The Japanese "Samidare" was conducting merchant vessel escort duties through the Internationally Recommended Transit Corridor (IRTC) in the Gulf of Aden in support of the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) Combined Task Force (CTF) 151 when UKMTO received the report of the attack. The "Samidare" responded by heading towards the tanker and launched her helicopter to search for the pirate dhow. All aboard the tanker were safe, and the vessel was able to resume her westbound voyage. In cooperation with a Japanese Maritime Patrol Aircraft, the "Samidare"'s helicopter found the suspect dhow and passed its location to the French EU NAVFOR flagship "Siroco" which was then able to close distance to the dhow and launch its helicopter and boarding team. Upon nearing the dhow, the helicopter crew and boarding team observed that people on board the dhow were throwing equipment over board, deepening the suspicion that the dhow was indeed the reported pirate mother-ship. Once the "Siroco"'s team boarded the dhow, five Somali suspect pirates surrendered and were separated from the dhow's crew and transferred to the "Siroco" for further investigation. The initial statement from the master of the dhow supported the suspicion that his vessel has been pirated and his crew taken hostage several days ago off the coast of Somalia. He also stated that the suspect pirates were responsible for the attack on the oil tanker the day before. Report with photos: http://eunavfor.eu/first-pirate-attack-in-2014-in-the-gulf-of-aden-resulted-in-apprehension-of-suspects-by-eu-naval-force/