Turkish Volgo-Balt Cargo Ship Grounds When Officer Reportedly Fell Asleep

Turkish officials are trying to salvage a small, coastal cargo ship after it went hard aground, Media reports are indicating the grounding happened at 0200 on Sunday, July 14 when the officer of the watch fell asleep. It was the latest in a long string of incidents with a class of Soviet-era vessels.

The vessel, the Volgo-Balt 213 (3,500 dwt) is Turkish-owned and registered in Panama. Built in 1978 and originally operating for Russia, the vessel has a spotty record. According to the Equasis database in the decade between 2014 and 2023, the cargo ship was inspected 26 times and each Port State inspection cited the ship for deficiencies and detained on at least three occasions. 

The ship which is 374 feet (114 meters) in length was traveling from Russia with 2,200 tons of animal feed. It had stopped at Istanbul and got underway at 21:00 on Saturday bound for the port of Gemlik. However, at 0200 the ship went hard aground about just about 20 feet from shore. Turkish media referred to the officer as the “third captain” who was in command of the vessel.

The crew consists of nine Azerbaijanis and three Ukrainians. No one was injured in the grounding, but the vessel suffered damage to its bow. The incident was immediately reported to the authorities. 

Turkey’s General Directorate of Coastal Safety reported on Tuesday, July 16 that two days of efforts to refloat the ship have so far been unsuccessful. Divers are now being brought in for a further survey and to aid in the development of the salvage plan.

As a class of ships, the Volgo-Balt has a poor safety history. They are Soviet-era riverine freighters built by the only large shipyard in the former Czechoslovakia. One of the ships of the class, broke up and sank in rough weather in January 2019, with six fatalities, while another broke up while at anchor in January 2021 with three crewmembers found dead and three others missing. In March 2021, another one of the ships sank in the Black Sea with two seafarers dead and one missing.