Fire leaves Swedish ship 'Sofia' adrift off Polish coast
After a nighttime fire and the evacuation of the five-member crew, the Swedish commercial ship "Sofia" is drifting in the Baltic Sea about 35 miles from the Polish coast. According to authorities, vessels are already on their way to secure the ship.
7:34 AM EST, November 29, 2024
The "Sofia" set sail from Ustka on Thursday afternoon, heading towards Sweden without cargo. In the evening, a fire broke out, forcing the crew to call for help. The Polish Press Agency reported that around 3:20 PM Eastern Time, the Polish Maritime Search and Rescue Service received information from the Danish authorities about the fire on board the ship.
The vessel was near the island of Bornholm, in Danish waters. Despite sending a helicopter from Darłowo, it was the Danish and Swedish helicopters that reached the site first, evacuating the entire five-member crew onto a Danish frigate. Polish rescue services participated in the operation as support.
SAR spokesman Rafał Goeck told PAP that two Polish vessels are heading towards the drifting "Sofia": the multipurpose rescue ship "Kapitan Poinc" and the tugboat H8 from the 3rd Flotilla of the Navy. They are expected to reach the ship on Friday around 12:00 PM Eastern Time.
Services are already heading to the lone drifting "Sofia"
Agnieszka Wieczorek, spokeswoman for the Maritime Office in Szczecin, stated that "Sofia" is located 37 miles from the coast at the level of Koszalin and is drifting at a speed of 1.4 mph. An automatic identification system monitors the ship, and the captains of passing vessels and Polish and German patrol planes continuously report the situation.
The drifting ship poses no threat to navigation, and the Hydrographic Office of the Navy has issued appropriate navigation warnings. The causes of the fire on "Sofia" are still unknown. The shipowner has ordered a tugboat from Rostock, Germany, to secure and tow the damaged vessel to a chosen port or repair shipyard.
At the time of the incident, there were difficult weather conditions in the Baltic—winds from 5 to 7 on the Beaufort scale, reaching speeds of up to 38 mph. The "Sofia" is a commercial ship built in 1986, totalling 236 feet. It last visited Ustka on November 28 with a cargo of aggregates.
