Russian ships refuse to sail

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32819, 20 January 1972, Page 12

Russian ships refuse to sail

(N.Z Press Association—Copyright)

ANCHORAGE (Alaska), January 19.

Two Russian fishing vessels with armed American sailors aboard were moored in pack ice in the Bering Sea today in the second day of a drama involving the American Coast Guard icebreaker Storis.

Crews of the Russian ships, the 4982-ton factory ship Lamut and a trawler, the Kolyvan, have refused to sail under arrest to the Aleutian port of Adak. TALKS ON STORIS The Coast Guard reported: “The situation is fluid right now.” Talks were being held with Russian officers on the Storis. The three ships are about 540 miles from Adak. The trouble began yesterday when the factory ship fled with an Amercian boarding party aboard. It ended after a two-hour night chase when the Storis, which carries a three-inch gun and two .50 machine-guns flashed a signal: “Stop, or be fired upon.” FOUND FISHING The two Soviet ships are said to have been discovered fishing off St Matthew Island, inside the 12-mile limit. The Lamut, the factory ship for about 80 Russian trawlers in the Bering Sea, was ordered to Adak with the Kolyvan.

The Kolyvan has stopped in thick ice about 30 miles from the Storis and the Lamut, a Coast Guard spokesman said. During the chase last night, permission was received from Washington for the icebreaker to fire shots across the Lamut’s bow if necessary. The distances between the ship and the port of Adak and a communications problem (no-one on the Storis speaks Russian) have complicated the situation.

Sources in Anchorage said another Coast Guard cutter, the Balsam, was on its way from Adak, and it was possible that the two United States ships might tow the Russian vessels to Adak through the ice. The commander of the Russian fleet, Captain Vladimar Artemov, is being held aboard the Storis.

CONFISCATION URGED The Governor of Alaska (Mr William Egan) has urged that the Russian ships be confiscated, if only in absentia, which would mean they could be seized if they ever entered a United States port.

“This is not a diplomatic problem,” said Mr Charles Bray, a spokesman for the State Department. “It is a fishing problem.”

The normal procedure is for fines to be levied and the ships released after a hearing. The last incident in Alaskan waters involved a Japanese trawler whose captain was fined by a Federal court in Anchorage in November. In Washington, spokesmen at the White House and the State Department discounted suggestions that the incident might affect President Nixon’s visit to Moscow in May.