According to Lloyd’s List, as many as 40 ships were sailing around with forged papers from Equatorial Guinea. The US coast guard considered every ship with the country’s flag to be suspicious and immediately boarded such ships were they to sail into US waters. In an alarming number of cases, the coast guard found serious violations of international standards. But it was the tragic fate of the four-masted schooner the Fantome – “The Phantom” – which would make Equatorial Guinea’s shoddy flag of convenience famous all over the world.3
Built in 1927 by the flamboyant Duke of Westminster as the Flying Cloud, the ship was one of the last great traditionally-rigged sailing ships – and one of the most luxurious privately owned yachts in the world. The Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis purchased the yacht as a wedding present for Princess Grace of Monaco, but Onassis never received an invitation to the wedding, so instead he left the boat to rust away in an anonymous port in Germany. Finally, the Fantome ended up as a charter boat for luxury tourists in the Caribbean – and with a home port in Africa’s sweaty armpit: Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.
The last time anyone saw the proud rigging of the Fantome standing tall on the horizon was 28 October 1998. As the ship departed from port in Omoa, Honduras for a six-day cruise in the Caribbean, the tropical storm Mitch was building up more than 1,600 kilometres away, but it was moving with a violent and unpredictable force. The Fantome returned to port to let its passengers disembark before it plunged north towards the Gulf of Mexico in search of shelter from one of the most deadly and destructive storms ever to occur in the Western hemisphere. Ashore, it could risk being crushed while docked; the chances of managing the hurricane were greater at sea. But it was as if the hurricane was following in the wake of the schooner. The Fantome quickly ran into winds of 160 kilometres an hour, 12-metre waves ploughed across the bow, from the bridge the captain stared straight into the eye of the storm.
The ship and the crew of 31 were never found and the automatic emergency beacon was never activated. A few weeks later, after the hurricane had died away, some pieces of life rafts that had been torn to bits were found, along with parts of a wooden stairway and life vests with the inscription Fantome, Malabo.
After the wreck, the owner, Windjammer Barefoot Cruises in Miami, admitted that they had registered the ship in Equatorial Guinea for tax reasons. In Equatorial Guinea’s name, the captain and the officers had received a licence and the required certifications without having passed a single exam. Everything was handled by an agent in Miami.
It was the flag state’s responsibility to investigate the wreck; it was never done. Equatorial Guinea’s representative in Miami made reference to newspaper articles and a report from the American coast guard. That would have to do. In the years following the Fantome tragedy, the toothfish poachers began registering with the bandit regime in Equatorial Guinea. The Kunlun was added to the register in 2004, at the time under the name the Thule, before the ship disappeared again two years later. But the shipping company still continued to use the flag, in all likelihood because they did not believe that Equatorial Guinea would react. When the Sam Simon discovered the ship in the Southern Ocean, the name plate was clearly legible: Kunlun, Malabo.
For the investigators of Interpol and the bureaucrats following along with the chase from land, it will be a nightmare if the Thunder sails into Equatorial Guinea. Then the ship will very likely slip through the fingers of the judicial system once and for all.
For Hammarstedt, the nightmare has a different quality. The worst scenario would be to chase the Thunder into a port where he and the ship will be put under arrest, while the officers of the Thunder will be free to saunter away from the quay and board the first flight to Spain.
35
MAYDAY
GULF OF GUINEA, APRIL 2015
Darkness has descended abruptly upon the Gulf of Guinea, and at a mere 5 knots the Thunder glides like a shadow into the night. Earlier in the day the Thunder and the Bob Barker crossed the equator, at lunchtime an airplane appeared on the radar and a few hours later they passed a pod of Risso’s dolphins.
As the watchstander team on the bridge of the Bob Barker is preparing for another hot and uneventful night, they suddenly see that a light is switched on near one of the bulkheads on the Thunder’s quarterdeck, and then several cones of lights dancing restlessly across the blacked out deck.
“19:03 – Activity observed on Thunder. Moving flashlights and unusual deck lights on,” quartermaster Alexis “Lex” Rigby writes in the ship’s log.
Then she asks Captain Hammarstedt and first mate Adam Meyerson to come to the bridge.
“What do you think, Adam?” Hammarstedt asks.
“They are definitely up to something. Anything else on the radar?” Meyerson asks.
“Nothing,” Rigby replies.
Ever since they left the Antarctic, Hammarstedt and Meyerson have been concerned about the Thunder receiving assistance from another vessel. The name and position of all ships that come within range of the radar are recorded in the logbook. So far only a few commercial ships have passed. They are closer to land than they have ever been in the course of the chase.
The past few days Hammarstedt has been feeling uneasy. He has just sent an email to Interpol and explained that they are located less than a day’s sail away from both Annobón in Equatorial Guinea and the tiny island state of São Tomé and Príncipe.
“I strongly suspect that the FV Thunder will make port call in the next coming days,” he warned.
Will this be the night when he will really be tested? Are the crew of the Thunder preparing for a rendezvous with another ship? Or are they going to dump the
