Bulgarian shipping company Navibulgar recently released images of the anchoring system aboard the bulker Vezhen, which was detained on suspicion of dragging its anchor and damaging a subsea cable between Gotland and Latvia. Navibulgar CEO Capt. Alexander Kalchev explained that the chain stopper failed gradually, allowing the chain to slip out slowly under tension without a runaway. The Vezhen was seized by Sweden on suspicion of aggravated sabotage after the cable outage, with the crew agreeing to divert to Swedish territorial seas where the ship was detained.
Kalchev maintains that the incident was an accident caused by rough weather conditions, with waves of 10 feet and winds of 40 knots as the Vezhen approached Gotland. Surveillance footage from the bridge showed the bow taking a pounding, leading to the wire stopper on the chain failing. The guillotine stopper bore the blows of the waves until it gradually gave way under tension, causing the chain to slip into the sea. Kalchev emphasized that similar incidents had occurred before but never resulted in subsea cable damage.
Despite the expensive and politically ill-timed nature of the incident, Kalchev believes the anchor drop was accidental based on the wear on the stopper bar. The ship’s crew has not been detained or questioned yet, with the investigation likely ongoing but no investigators conducting interviews with the crew onboard. Kalchev emphasized that there was no deliberate attempt to cause an incident by dropping the anchor near the cable.
