Catching Thunder

by Eskil Engdal

  It was the most advanced factory trawler ever built in the long-established shipyard town. The vessel was destined for the Faroe Islands, where it would lead Faroese fishery into the modern age.

  “May she bring good fortune to all who sail on her, I hereby name thee Vesturvon,” the Godmother read before releasing the champagne bottle with a smash against the side of the ship, which many years later would come to be known as the Thunder. The shipyard’s general manager subsequently asked the Godmother to be sure to accompany the vessel in her prayers for the remainder of her lifetime.

  On the Faroe Islands, the trawler was welcomed by a brass band and a jubilant crowd.1 The first shipmaster, the silent and authoritative Davor Poulsen, held a devotional meeting in the lounge every Sunday, no matter how good the fishing was. For several years they fished in the banks around Greenland. Twice the ship experienced an engine breakdown and had to be towed south. But the Vesturvon was a survivor; although the storm blew the roofs off the houses on the Faroe Islands and the towing line snapped, the trawler miraculously made it to a shipyard in Denmark.

  After 17 years of service fishing cod around Greenland and the Faroe Islands, the Vesturvon was sold to the long-established English family shipyard Boyd Line. When in 1986 the ship sailed into the English seaport of Hull, it was given the name Arctic Ranger.

  Hull was once one of the world’s largest fishing harbours. In the 1950s, the city was the home port of 350 trawlers. The fishing around Iceland, the Barents Sea, Bear Island and along the coast of Labrador was the most dangerous and rough in the world, but the catches were incredible. The ship owners lived like barons and when the trawler seamen came ashore at St Andrew’s Dock, the wealth was often squandered in the course of three days. They were called “the three day millionaires”.2 Many of them never had the chance to enjoy the profits reaped from the ocean. Between 1835 and 1983, 900 of the city’s ships disappeared at sea. In addition to this came the many seamen who were washed overboard by a wave to vanish into the darkness. Hull had lost 6,000 men at sea.

  In August the Vesturvon set out from Hull headed for Newfoundland. Seven of the trawler’s former crew from the Faroe Islands were on the voyage. The English crew were trawler seamen who had not had work since the Cod Wars 11 years before. These wars were not mentioned as they sailed north; they talked about the Suez conflict and about the Falklands War two years earlier. Some spoke about their fathers, who had fought at Dunkirk during the Second World War, but the subject of the Cod Wars was off limits. It had torn the heart out of “Trawlertown”.

  In the autumn of 1975, Norway and Iceland expanded their territorial borders and shut the Hull fleet out from its former fishing banks. Hull slowly deteriorated into ruin, the fish merchants went under, the once so lively St Andrew’s Dock was levelled to the ground, the warehouses fell into disrepair, the store windows were sealed up with particle boards and nobody lifted the heavy coils of rope on the harbour any longer. Even the churches went by the wayside. The cheerful Hessle Road turned into one of the most impoverished stretches of road in Great Britain.

  The aging shipmaster who guided the old Vesturvon towards the coast of Newfoundland had never before been on a factory trawler. He seldom spoke with the crew and on the bridge he wore a suit and freshly shined shoes. The crew from the Faroe Islands noticed that the Englishmen had “another attitude to rank and cleanliness”.

  At the unsheltered fish bank Flemish Cap things were about to go wrong again for the old Vesturvon. As the storm released itself upon the ship, the trawler ran aground on the seabed. The ship was narrow, long and had a low freeboard. Before long the ocean was washing over the deck and filling the trawler with water. The Faroese boatswain was flipped over by the waves pounding across the deck and was on the verge of vanishing into the ocean. But this time too, the ship rode out the storm.

  At the start of the new millennium, the Vesturvon’s proud history came to an end. The shipping company was not granted a fishing quota in Norway and in a partnership with a Russian shipping company, the trawler was sent out to fish in the Barents Sea, this time under the name of the Rubin.

  In the Barents Sea, the ship, which would later be known as the Thunder, disappeared into a maelstrom of shell corporations, bizarre ships registers and shady expeditions.

  9

  THE PIRATE CAPITAL

  PORT LOUIS, MAURITIUS, 2003

  In the winter of 2003 a fishing vessel with a blue hull and Togolese flag sailed into the Port Louis harbour in Mauritius.

  “Please be advised that the vessel Rubin has changed name to Typhoon 1. She called at Port Louis for bunkering purposes and provisions and had cargo in transit … I work in the shipping and fishing sector and am privileged to accurate info,” wrote an informant for COLTO, the Coalition of Legal Toothfish Operators.1 The coalition had offered a reward of 100,000 dollars to anyone who could provide information about the illegal fleet. The informant covertly took photographs of the trawler unloading tons of toothfish.

  It was the ship formerly named the Vesturvon, which would later be known as the Thunder.

  A few months later, the informant notified the coalition that the ship was the property of a shipping company in Galicia in Spain. And that it was on its way to Antarctica.2

  The bustling harbour in Port Louis on the northwest coast of Mauritius was not only an ideal anchoring site sheltered from the westerly winds, but also a perfect hiding place. On the quay, ships’ cargoes of sugar, tea, cotton, wheat and rice were unloaded. Within the constant flow of goods and beneath the dance of the cranes against the sky, containers full of Patagonian toothfish were secretly unloaded. In dives all around the harbour, Norwegian, Danish and Spanish seamen boasted of the looting of the Antarctic and argued over who had discovered the valuable commodity first. An illegal Norwegian fleet of 12 large vessels was among the most advanced and well-equipped. With its longline fishing system from Mustad they could search for the largest toothfish at depths of 2,500 metres. The Spanish ships were older, scrapped vessels that were forced to fish closer to land. There was therefore a far greater risk of their being discovered.

  Half of all the toothfish brought to the market in the West passed for a period of time through the island in the southwest of the Indian Ocean. The logistics surrounding the illegal trading activities were sophisticated. At the harbour, the ship owners could purchase false import and export documents and the catches were often sold to nominee companies that falsified documents for resale on the lucrative US market. Attempts to trace the fish back to the source came to an end at a post office box, or on the doorstep of a company that turned out to be non-existent.

  In the New Year of 2006, the research ship Aurora Australis set out from Fremantle with 2.2 million litres of fuel and 53 research scientists on board. The destination was the two Australian research stations Mawson and Dawis on the edge of the Antarctic plateau. During the 70-day voyage, the crew and the scientists would collect data for a number of different research programmes. The ships had also received orders to inform the Australian authorities of any whalers and fishing vessels they encountered in the Southern Ocean. All observations were to be called in immediately, regardless of the time of day. As the Aurora Australis approached the ice edge north of the Banzare Bank and the Prydz Bay, they saw a storm moving towards them. Despite the poor visibility, they could just make out a blue and white trawler with its deck full of net floats. On the stern was the name Typhoon 1, Lome.

  The third mate of the Aurora Australis feared that the fishing gear could become entangled in the propellers, putting the research ship out of commission. That could lead to a catastrophe. When he called up the trawler, he received the answer that they were longline fishing. The chance meeting in the Southern Ocean was reported to the Australian authorities. The ship that would later be known as the Thunder was then blacklisted for the first time.3

  Every year the Thunder set out on two too
thfish expeditions in the Southern Ocean. A catch of 80 tons per trip was sufficient to cover the costs of fuel, wages, fishing gear and supplies. In 2010, after having been blacklisted for four years, they fished a total of 700 tons of toothfish. It was a goldmine for all concerned.

  After the authorities of Mauritius started becoming aggressive, the Thunder found a new hiding place, Penang in Malaysia, an island in the Strait of Malacca which was once known as the Pearl of the Orient. In Penang, the Chinese millionaires built their mansions on Guernye Road. In the evenings they met in the bar of the Oriental Hotel, where the hospitable Armenian owner would stroll into the bar with a whiskey glass balanced on top of his bald head and allow the guests to stay for free, until he died of liver failure and in financial ruin. Penang and the island’s largest city, Georgetown, disappeared into oblivion for a time when the harbour lost its significance as a port of call on world trade routes. After the authorities of Mauritius relented to international pressure and chased the toothfish fleet out to sea, it made its way to Penang.

  The Thunder would usually sail into Penang on one of the calmer days on the weekend. Then the two regular Chinese buyers would climb on board. In the cold storage room they assessed the quality of the fish before agreeing on a price with the ship owner’s right-hand man – a well-dressed Chilean who spoke fluent Mandarin and went by the nickname “Capitán Nemo”.

  A middle-aged Spaniard with language proficiency also took part in the bartering. He was a wizard at negotiations. He was the one who procured cheap fuel, solved most of the problems and kept the port authorities happy with gifts large and small. And he was the one who could acquire another flag when the ship needed one.

  The ship owner’s only concern was the constant attention the ship received. It was included on the EU’s own black list of pirate vessels. The EU also went after some of the flag states that provided shelter for the pirate fleet. Togo was one of these. The tiny African nation earned far more on the sale of phosphate, cocoa, coffee and nuts to the European market than on selling its national flag to dubious ship owners. The Typhoon 1 was thrown out of Togo’s ships register in 2010. The ship owner solved the problem by securing flags in two nations simultaneously. Sometimes Mongolia’s red and white flag waved above the Thunder’s stern post, at other times it was the green and white flag of Nigeria.

  To confuse the authorities the ship changed names with increasing frequency. The Thunder, Kuko, Wuhan No. 4, Ming No. 5, Batu 1. It was only once the name plate had been attached to the stern that the crew knew what the ship would be called on the following day.

  In Australia, the investigator Glen Salmon studied the high-resolution surveillance photos of the trawler with the characteristic incinerator at the stern, the tall mast on the quarterdeck and two additional smokestacks, on the port side and starboard side, respectively. And he was not in doubt: the Thunder, Kuko, Wuhan No. 4 and Ming No. 5 were all the same ship.4

  As manager of the Australian Fisheries Management Authority, Salmon was the person coordinating Australia’s efforts to prevent illegal vessels in the Southern Ocean. Every year they shelled out millions of dollars on patrolling the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean with ships and sophisticated surveillance planes. There were two ships that he saw more often than others: the Thunder and the Viking.

  Ever since the authorities of Penang gave Salmon the first crew list from the Thunder in 2010, he had tirelessly gathered information about the ship. In the harbours of Malaysia where the pirate vessels sought shelter, he started his own little intelligence operation. Salmon was formerly a federal police agent and was known to be a capable investigator. He had a friendly, reserved nature and the ability to put people at ease in his company. This also made it possible for him to extract information without disclosing too much about himself.

  In Malaysia he distributed a pamphlet containing photos of the six vessels which several years later would adorn Peter Hammarstedt’s “The Bandit 6” poster. Then he asked the port inspectors he met if they had seen the ships.5

  “Yes, yes, they all speak Spanish,” was the most common answer he got.

  There was little Salmon could do to stop the ships, but he could arrange a minor form of hell for the ship owners. Every time a surveillance plane spotted the ships leaving Antarctica, Salmon and his team notified the authorities in Malaysia: The ships will very likely be in your parts in four or five days.6

  And Salmon’s tactics produced results. In the winter of 2012, the inspectors in Penang started becoming aggressive and inspected the Thunder three times. The ship owner and his two assistants went into hiding at one of Penang’s hotels. Two weeks passed before they succeeded in bringing the fish to land.

  It became more and more difficult for the Thunder to find a safe harbour. When the ship sailed into the shallow Benoa Harbour in Bali, it was boarded by agents from Indonesia and Australia. To the agents’ great surprise they found no fishing gear on board. But a quick glance at the rusty incinerator that was lashed securely to the Thunder’s quarterdeck disclosed that the nets had been burned. The ships’ documents on the bridge stated that the vessel was flagged in Nigeria, but the ship agent had a ship’s certificate from Mongolia on which the same ship was named the Wuhan No. 4. The ship was then chased out of Bali as well.

  The Thunder had been observed by surveillance planes, patrol vessels and research ships and inspected by fisheries officers more than 20 times since the ship was blacklisted. The old trawler was now a repeat offender, whom the authorities in Australia, New Zealand and Norway decided to stop.

  On Thursday 5 December 2013, at 8 PM, Interpol issued a Purple Notice on the Thunder to its 190 member nations. It was the second time in history that a notice on a fishing vessel was issued by Interpol.

  After the Purple Notice was issued, the Thunder roamed about to such an extent that there were few on board who had any idea of where they were or where they were headed. From the bridge they seldom received information; those wanting to know something had to purchase it from one of the ship owner’s trusted officers. The currency was in beer and cigarettes.

  In April 2014, the ship dropped anchor southeast of Teluk Ramunia, an old mining district on the south-eastern tip of Malaysia. These were troubled waters and a well-known smugglers route for oil, refugees and exotic animals. The name of the ship was now the Ming No. 5.

  But the authorities here had also been tipped off about her. The Russian captain and chief engineer were placed under arrest, on charges of illegal anchoring. The involuntary stay cost the Thunder’s owner a lucrative expedition in the Antarctic.

  10

  THE STORM

  THE SOUTHERN OCEAN, DECEMBER 2014

  A storm is on its way in from the northeast.

  The Thunder sets its course out of the 60th parallel south and into the 50th parallel south – “the Furious Fifties”.

  Straight into the storm.

  On the bridge of the Bob Barker, Adam Meyerson glances at the weather radar. The yellowish-orange colour codes he sees indicate winds up to 40 knots. The reddish-black field further northwest tells of a full-scale storm – winds reaching up to 60 knots and waves over 7–8 metres tall.

  “It is OK if they take us to the mustard. But not the ketchup,” Meyerson says.

  This is the only place on earth where the movements of the wind, current and waves are wholly unimpeded. Here the low pressure systems race around the continent in an eternal storm. South of the 50th parallel, one storm a week can build up, and the stable summer months of January and February are like mid-winter in the North Atlantic. At “the Roaring Forties”, the region between the 40th and 50th parallels, the warm air from tropical waters meets the cold air mass from the Antarctic. The collision whips up the most powerful waves on the surface of the earth, and nothing stands in their way. The velocity and force of a wave depends on its length and the distance between the crests of the waves. There is nothi
ng to stop them here and the longer the wave is, the harder it will topple into the hull of a ship.

  Matthew Fontaine Maury, the father of modern day oceanography, described the weather at the bottom of the world as “a reservoir of dynamic force for the winds – a regulator in the grand meteorological machinery of the earth”.1 The crew on the full-rigged ships called the wind belt “Dead Man’s Road” and knew that it was down here the devil began dancing between the masts.

  The Eye of Sauron, Peter Hammarstedt thinks. The image depicted on the weather radar resembles the eye of the evil Sauron in Lord of the Rings. First, the reddish-black iris, then – in the middle – the vertical, reddish-yellow pupil.

  The storm centre.

  It is the seventh day of the chase; the ships have sailed 1,500 nautical miles. The media’s interest of the initial days has subsided, but the Dutch authorities are asking for an update on the Thunder’s position. At the daily morning meeting in the messroom, Hammarstedt explains that some “pretty nasty weather” is on the way and that the Sam Simon is approaching the Antarctic convergence zone.2 The ship is now three days from the gillnets from which the Thunder was fleeing.

  Captain Sid Chakravarty on the Sam Simon is preparing for an aggressive meeting with the fish poachers. The toothfish that are probably now caught in the gillnets left behind by the Thunder is worth so much that they might return to try and retrieve their catch. If that happens, Chakravarty will give them a fight. What if they have weapons on board and threaten to use them?

  But the Thunder is clearly choosing the same strategy as the Japanese whalers did when they were chased by Sea Shepherd’s fleet: escape into the storm. When the whalers encountered stormy weather, they sailed the ship across the storm to make life unbearable for the far smaller Bob Barker.