Maritime Edition: Rough Seas Port and Starboard

türkçe links to original Turkish article

(Hürriyet Newspaper, 11 December 2015)


Cannibal cruise?: if their friends could see them now.

A breakdown on the Turkish cargo ship IDC Pearl forced it to
pull into a port in Taiwan for repairs.  While there, four decomposed
bodies were found between the balast tanks.  Taiwan officials
refused to allow the bodies to be removed from the ship, locked
the door of the balast compartment and told the Pearl to leave the
harbor.

About one month later the Pearl reached the port of İskenderun
in Turkey's Hatay province, where the public prosecutor had the
bodies inspected.  No ID's were found with the bodies but there
were arm and fingernail marks on the door of the balast compartment.

The theory is that the bodies had been in the compartment for 5
years and that the individuals may have been refugee stowaways
who either went into the compartment voluntarily or were put there.


İskenderun is on the Med coast in Hatay province.

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türkçe links to original Turkish article

(HaberTürk Newspaper, 25 November 2015)


                    The proverbial cry for...

A human drama has been going on aboard a cargo ship in the waters
off Zeytinburnu, Istanbul.  Members of the Young Mariners and
Solidarity Association (GEDDAD) noticed a 'HELP' sign hung over
the side of the Cambodian-flagged TALLAS cargo ship the day
before yesterday.

When the GEDDAD members boarded the ship they found five
crewmen, who have been stranded there for the past four months.
It seems that after leaving Crimea, the Russian company that owns
the ship went bankrupt.  Now, if the crew leaves the ship they will
lose the 62,000 USD owed to them.

Ukrainian captain Nalyvayko Valeriy explained that "we left Crimea
on 22 July and entered Turkish waters on 4 August.  We're waiting
for news from the company.  The owner sends us food from time to
time. Mostly we fish."  He added that no garbage collection ship has
come for months.


Zeytinburnu district of Istanbul, on the Sea of Marmara.

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türkçe links to original Turkish article

(HaberTürk Newspaper, 7 December 2015)


More trouble than it's worth...and it's worth an awful lot.

After the death of Hüseyin Rüştü Altuntaş, the famous
businessman from Rize, an inheritance fight began between
his first wife and four daughters and his second wife and
her children.

First wife Bedriye Altunbaş and her daughters Yıldıray Erebcim,
Nazife Yalçın, Şefkal Şahinkaya and Semiha Aslan claim that before
their father died on 2 September he transferred all his wealth to
his second wife and her children, depriving Bedriye hanım and her
girls of their rightful share.

Bedriye hanım's lawyer Bülent Kısar asserted in court that the
second wife and her children transferred the wealth to family
companies by prearrangement.  In one of these transactions,
Altuntaş's mega-yacht Egeria, which is worth 30 million euros
and which rents for 1 million euros per month (!), was allegedly
sold to a company set up in America and renamed Majestic Wonder,
in order to avoid Bedriye hanım's claim on it.


Proud yachtsman Altuntaş left squabbling heirs in his wake.