Lyubov Orlova ran aground at Deception Island on 27 November 2006. She was towed off by Spanish Navy icebreaker, Las Palmas and made her own way to Ushuaia.
In September 2010, Lyubov Orlova was seized at St John’s, Newfoundland due to debts of US$251,000 owed to the charterer, Cruise North Expeditions, from a cancelled cruise due to faults with the ship. In addition, the 51 crew members had not been paid in five months. She was arrested in Newfoundland, and sold to Neptune International Shipping, in February 2012, to be broken up.
The derelict vessel had been tied up in St. John’s harbour for over two years and was being towed to the Dominican Republic to be scrapped. The tug Charlene Hunt, owned by American tug operator Hunt Marine, was initially contracted to tow the ship south to the Dominican Republic. Just one day after leaving the dock, the tow line parted. The crew of the tugboat tried unsuccessfully to reconnect the line hampered by 35 kilometer per hour winds and three-metre waves. By January 28 2013 Lyubov Orlova was drifting slowly eastward off the southeastern end of the Avalon Peninsula in Canada.
The offshore supply vessel, Atlantic Hawk, with a 157 tonne continuous bollard pull rating, under contract by Husky Energy, was tasked to regain control of the drifting vessel. On February 1, 2013, Transport Canada announced that on January 31 Atlantic Hawkhad successfully gained control of the drifting ship, which was no longer a risk to oil and gas operations in the region.
However, once in international waters, Transport Canada decided to cut her loose. “The Lyubov Orlova no longer poses a threat to the safety of offshore oil installations, their personnel or the marine environment. The vessel has drifted into international waters and given current patterns and predominant winds, it is very unlikely that the vessel will re-enter waters under Canadian jurisdiction,” the department said in a statement. Safety concerns were cited by Transport Canada in their reason to not pursue a salvage operation to retrieve the ship.
The ship was located on February 4 2013, approximately 250 nautical miles east of St. John’s, NL (approximately 50 nautical miles outside Canada’s territorial waters) and drifting in a northeasterly direction. She could have ended up almost anywhere from the Norwegian arctic to western Africa, or stuck in the middle of the North Atlantic Gyre. Transport Canada reiterated that the owner of the vessel remained responsible for its movements, and measures had been taken to monitor the position of the drifting ship.
On February 23, according to the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, Lyubov Orlova was spotted at roughly 1300 nautical miles from the Irish coast.
On February 28 the ship was the subject of news reports in Iceland and Ireland, and a caution to smaller vessels was issued. On March 1st 2013 Irish media reported that a signal from the vessel’s emergency position-indicating radio beacon (EPIRB) was received from 700 nautical miles off the Kerry coast, still in international waters. An EPIRB only starts transmitting when the device is exposed to water, leading experts to speculate that the ship may have sunk. The Irish Air Corps was expected to continue to monitor the region. As of 22 April 2013, there was no trace of the ship.
