Later both the police and insurance investigators have tried to solve the mystery of the Tiantai. They still don’t have all the answers, but there is one thing they know for sure: the distress alert that was triggered in the Southern Ocean when the ship disappeared was a hoax.2
The strange story of the Tiantai’s short life as a pirate vessel starts on a tempestuous day in January, north of the Shackleton ice shelf in the Antarctic in 2012. The ship that a fisheries officer from Australia spots through the rain and the wind has three large cranes on deck and a high wheelhouse astern. It resembles neither the pirate trawlers nor the large research vessels they now and then encounter down by the ice edge in “the Screaming Sixties”. The ship has no business being here, thinks the experienced inspector who calls up the unidentified ship.
The man who introduces himself as the captain explains that he is from Thailand and that there is a crew of 20 on board, including two Spaniards. They sailed from Singapore a week ago and the next stop is Zanzibar, he explains in broken English.
That’s an odd story, the fisheries officers think. It makes no sense to sail down to the Antarctic when you are travelling from Singapore to Zanzibar.
“What do you have as cargo?” the officer asks.
“No cargo on board now.”
“If you have left Singapore and are going to Zanzibar, why have you come down this far South, Sir?”
“Ahh, please repeat again. Over,” the captain replies.
“If you left Singapore one week ago and now in 45 days you will be in Zanzibar, what do you expect to pick up as cargo, Sir?”
“Yes. Correct!” the Thai captain exclaims.
“What will be your main form of cargo when you transship in Zanzibar?”
“I don’t know.”
When the officer asks for the contact information of the company that allegedly owns the ship in Tanzania, there is silence on the radio.
The experienced Australian fisheries officer has had enough of the charade.
“Sir, I believe that you are transshipping or are attempting to transship fish caught illegally within the CCAMLR zone. What you have said to me and what we have seen will be recorded and given to the Tanzanian Government and other CCAMLR members. Do you wish to make any further comment?” the officer asks.
He receives no answer.
Two months later, a surveillance plane sees the Tiantai being towed past the Australian Christmas Island by an old acquaintance, the Kunlun. They are headed for Indonesia, not for Zanzibar, as the captain had claimed.
The sight of the Tiantai and the Kunlun together confirms the suspicion. The Tiantai is a newcomer in the pirate fleet in the Southern Ocean. It is probably the mother ship of a fleet of fishing vessels that have been observed in the vicinity of one another for many years – the Kunlun, Yongding and Songhua.
The Tiantai is blacklisted.
There are two different versions of the story of the Tiantai’s final voyage in March 2014. One version – the maritime declaration – was submitted to authorities and insurance companies, while the other was written down by hand on small pieces of paper by a man who witnessed the shipwreck.
The maritime declaration, which is officially written by the Indonesian captain of the Tiantai, starts like this: “16 March. The voyage south was without incident. It should be noted that we observed a few isolated icebergs.”
Three days later they are close to the ice edge northwest of the Australian research station Casey. There the Tiantai meets its sister vessels the Kunlun, Yongding and Songhua. In the course of a few days, 589 tons of frozen fish are offloaded onto the Tiantai. In the middle of the night the crew hears something bang against the hull on the port side. They see that a half-submerged ice floe, about 90 metres long and 40 metres wide, has hit the side of the ship. The crew checks the hull thoroughly but can find no damage.
When they start navigating closer to the Kunlun in the early morning hours to receive the last of the fish, the Tiantai starts behaving strangely. There is something wrong with the balance of the ship, and they discover water in one of the cargo holds.
They discontinue the transshipment and ask for help with draining the ship. Then the captain sets his course northwest to find a place with calmer weather conditions where they can attempt to save the vessel. In the course of the next day, the amount of water in the cargo hold increases. They try to find the leak, but it is impossible. The cargo hold is now full of ice cold water and heavy bags of frozen fish are floating around chaotically. The captain asks his colleague on the Kunlun if he can borrow an extra bilge pump.
On 26 March, the weather grows worse. The ship is unstable and difficult to manoeuvre, and the crew starts to get nervous. The captain decides to evacuate the majority over to the Kunlun. Those who remain, the captain, ship mates and engineers see that now water is also pouring into the engine room. They also find water in the second of the ship’s three cargo holds. Then the ship starts listing dramatically, several times they lose the power and on 29 March they give up. The engine room will soon be completely under water and the weather conditions are bad. The rest of the crew is evacuated over to the Kunlun.
The first story of the final days of the Tiantai ends here.
What happens next is undisputed.
First, the Tiantai keels over, then the stern is pulled under and takes the rest of the ship with it. The bow is the last thing the crew sees before the ship disappears into the ocean depths.
On board an emergency beacon is activated and the signal is picked up by the Australian chief rescue operations centre, which is responsible for rescue actions in this area. Further north, in
