It's a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack.

Friday, January 24, 2014

Ghost ship? Cannibal rats?

The plight of the Lyubov Orlova has grabbed the imagination of the media with its tale of cannibal rats" aboard an abandoned vessel drifting in the north Atlantic -- possibly toward the U.K. On Thursday, reports surfaced that high winds could be pushing the vessel and its rats toward the shore of western Ireland, Scotland or the southern tip of England.

If it weren't for the starving rodents believed to be feeding on one another on the craft, the story of this cruise vessel turned ghost ship could have an aura of romance.

What is the Lyubov Orlova? A Yugoslavian-built cruise ship named for a 1930s star of Russian cinema, Lyubov Petrovna Orlova. The Orlova was built in 1976 for pleasure cruises to the Antarctic and Arctic Circle. Passengers were world-travelers, well-to-do or would-be academics.

In 2010, the ship was impounded in Newfoundland because of a dispute over debts. The crew was unpaid and deserted their ship, which moldered in port for two years before it was decided it should be towed to the Dominican Republic and turned into scrap metal.

But on the way to the scrap heap, the tow-line to the tug broke and the ship was lost at sea. Canadian authorities reportedly captured it later, dragged it out to international waters and let it loose. Since then the empty husk of the cruise liner has been adrift, its cozy interior now believed to be inhabited by hordes of rats feeding off one another.

There's been no sign of the vessel since March of last year. Automatic beacons are triggered when lifeboats on the ship hit the water, the Independent reports. Two beacons were triggered in March 2013. But not all the lifeboats have signaled, a sign the ship could still be afloat and, possibly, headed toward land.

The head of the Irish coast guard told U.K. media: "We must stay vigilant."

Source: Chicago Tribune
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So if I understand this, the ship has been unseen and unreported for almost a year, may or may not still be afloat in the North Atlantic, may have rats on board who may or may not be eating other rats and may or may not be drifting to Ireland or Scotland or England ... Did the Mayans predict this?

1 comment:

  1. I love ghost stories / ship wreck mysteries; this is right up my alley.

    ReplyDelete