Lyubov Orlova. IMO 7391434. Passenger ship. Length 100 m, 2,695 t. Cook Islands flag since 2009. Classification society Russian Maritime Register of Shipping. Built in 1976 in Kraljevica (Croatia) by Titovo. Detained in 2002 in Saint Petersburg (Russia). Former Soviet passenger ship owned by Far Eastern Shipping Company (Fesco) from Vladivostok ; acquired in 1986 by the Lubov Orlova Shipping Company, Malta based with Russian capital. This vessel with a capacity of 122 passengers was finally chartered by Cruise North Expeditions, an Inuit company which assigned her on their summer cruises in the Northern Canada. (Hudson and Baffin Bay …). As a result of salaries not paid to her 51 crew members and debts to her bunker suppliers she was seized on September 25th, 2010 in St John (Newfoundland, Canada). She was replaced by her sister-ship the Bahamian Clipper Adventurer (ex-Anna Tarasova) managed by International Shipping Partners, Miami. On August 27th, 2010, the Clipper Adventurer ran aground on a reef in the region of Nunavut, threatening the Canadian Arctic Ocean (Cf. “A new contaminated site in the Arctic”). The Lyubov Orlova was sold as is for an unknown destination of demolition. US $ 275 per ton.
From Ship-breaking.com # 27, p 22 – May 2012
Lyubov Orlova leaving Saint John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, January 23, 2013. © CBC
Press releases by Robin des Bois:
” For scrap and adrift, this is Canada’s motto“, January 29, 2013
“Canada Vandalizes the Atlantic“, February 13, 2013
“The ghost ship is not an orphan“, February 20 2013 – 10h30 (in French only)
“Press release # 4, Lyubov Orlova” February 21, 2013 – 4.15 PM
“Sunk?“, February 25, 2013 – 11h AM
The END: the drifting of Lyubov Orlova. “Shipbreaking” # 36. P 65-68. July 2014.
Lyubov Orlova, before drifting, towed by Charlene Hunt, January 23, 2013 © Wes Pretty
In French : Droit de l’Environnement n°211 – avril 2013
« Le Lyubov Orlova , navire fantôme à la dérive… » Marie Bourrel, Centre de droit maritime et océanique, Université de Nantes (pdf – 863 Ko)
