site.btaShip Owner Denies Foul Play in Baltic Sea Cable Incident

The Navibulgar company in Varna said on Tuesday that the crew of its ship Vezhen, which was detained by the Swedish authorities on January 26 after a Latvian report of a broken fibre optic cable in the Baltic Sea, did not commit any malicious act. Navibulgar CEO Alexander Kalchev ruled out the possibility of sabotage which is being considered by the Swedish prosecution service.

Speaking to journalists in Varna, Kalchev explained that about 12 hours before the incident the sea waves in the area were 2.5 m to 3 m high and the wind was blowing at a speed of 25 knots. Footage from an on-board camera shows waves crashing against the bow of the ship and sweeping over its aft, which apparently made it too risky for crew members to venture out to check what was going on.

Other sources claimed that the waves were rather low and the crew could have easily handled the situation.

Kalchev went on to say that a wire rope serving as an anchor safety element obviously gave in to the force of the waves. Hours of repeated knocks damaged the guillotine-type stopper, and the anchor gradually dropped lower and lower. "It was not easy for the crew to notice something like that happening due to the bad weather. There is no reason to suspect malicious actions. Even if there were omissions, it was impossible to predict when the chain would begin to drop and the anchor would reach the bottom and begin to drag," Kalchev argued.

Navibulgar is not involved in shadow shipping practices, the CEO went on to say. He noted that the Vezhen is two years old and is on the list of the world's largest ship classification organization. The vessel is insured by one of the world's top three insurers. Navibulgar works with the world's largest leaseholders. The 10 Bulgarian officers on board the Vezhen have graduated from the Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy or the Technical University in Varna, Kalchev said.

He urged journalists to be patient and wait for the opinion of experts. "I am certain that Sweden has teams that are competent enough to make an analysis according to the highest standards and identify the real cause of the incident. It will then become clear whether the cable break was our fault. The political colouring of the case may be very interesting, but it is damaging to the image of our company and Bulgaria," he said.

The investigators who are supposed to probe the case have not boarded the vessel yet and the crew has not been interviewed, Kalchev said. He added that officers of the Swedish state on-board control authority are checking the ship. "This is normal practice, given that the ship has been reported to have been involved in an incident," he commented.