North Sea tanker crash trial told sister ship had steering fault

The captain of a cargo ship which crashed into an oil tanker killing a crew member told a court he heard of a steering problem on a sister ship days before the collision.

Vladimir Motin was on watch on the Solong when it hit US tanker Stena Immaculate off the East Yorkshire coast on 10 March last year, leaving Mark Angelo Pernia, 38, missing presumed dead.

Giving evidence at the Old Bailey in London, Motin said he was told by somebody in the shipping company that a similar vessel experienced a “sudden rudder blockage”.

Motin said he was told not to be “afraid” if it happened on the Solong and he could rectify the problem by restarting the steering gear, stopping the pump and starting it again.

He added that the incident “was still under investigation and he asked me if I had a similar problem to report and he would pass it on to technical management”.

“I never had this problem. It never happened here [on the Solong],” he said.

The captain told the jury he had worked on ships since 1985 and became captain of the Solong in 2009, working six months on and six months off.

He had already made several trips from Grangemouth in Scotland to Rotterdam when the collision happened, the court heard.

Motin said that visibility on the day of the crash was around three nautical miles (5.5km) and it was daylight when he went back on watch.

He said with those conditions there was no need for a second person on the bridge.

Defence barrister James Leonard KC asked: “You feel okay with that on your own?”

Motin replied: “Absolutely,” adding he had been on solo watch many times before in similar conditions.

The court previously heard Motin told police he had tried to take manual control of the ship’s steering when it was one mile (1.6km) away from the Stena Immaculate, but the autopilot did not disengage.

Motin, 59, from Primorsky in St Petersburg, Russia, denies gross negligence manslaughter.

The trial continues.

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