[Scan-DC] Incident in Baltimore

[mdmonitor1 at verizon.net]

All,

Huh!  Not a drill!

 
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.ship18mar18,0,3861972.story

Officials say drunkenness led to altercation on ship

March 18, 2008

Four crew members aboard a Malta-flagged ship being investigated by the 
Coast Guard after a dispute in the Chesapeake Bay last week were drunk, 
and one, armed with a knife, shoved a Maryland Port captain, federal 
prosecutors charged yesterday.

The master of the Ocean Victory, Wojciech Kowalski, 63, of Poland, was 
charged with failing to ensure the wheelhouse was staffed by a competent 
crew member and with failing to notify the Coast Guard that the ship did 
not meet minimum staffing requirements, the Maryland U.S. attorney's 
office said.

The four crew members were charged with operating a ship under the 
influence of alcohol. They were identified as 2nd Officer Yevgen 
Bystrov, 39, of Ukraine; Seaman Sergey Prokofyev, 37, of Russia; Seaman 
Yolodym Voychenko, 45, of Ukraine; and the oiler, Yuriy Shelkunov, 29, 
of Ukraine.

According to the court documents, crew members said they bought a case 
of Budweiser beer and that one crew member had drunk eight beers before 
departing from Baltimore. The crew members charged with being drunk face 
a maximum one year in prison and a $100,000 fine.

The Coast Guard detained the 328-foot ship at the mouth of the Patuxent 
River, near Drum Point in Southern Maryland, on March 10 after what was 
described as a dispute.

Federal prosecutors said three captains from the Association of Maryland 
Pilots boarded the ship to help the crew depart from the Port of 
Baltimore through the Chesapeake Bay. One pilot reported smelling 
alcohol on a crew member, and that member departed the bridge, 
prosecutors said.

After the ship passed under the Bay Bridge, prosecutors said, the 
helmsman also left the bridge, "leaving no member of the ship's 
personnel in the wheelhouse," according to prosecutors. A port captain 
went to the master's stateroom, and one crew member then returned.

But that crew member, prosecutors said, shoved the captain twice and 
"held a large knife." The ship master took the knife away, and the port 
captains handcuffed the man. They said he refused to take a breath test 
but later passed out, according to federal court documents.

The Maryland captains anchored the ship and left "because the ship could 
not safely navigate with intoxicated crewmen," according to the 
statement of probable cause filed by federal authorities.

Copyright © 2008, The Baltimore Sun


Ron
Baltimore MD
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