Sailor stranded on ship in UK port for 15 months after legal dispute

Four crew Indian crew members stuck on vessel in Great Yarmouth after owner went bust

Captain Nikesh Rastogi fears he will go unpaid for 15 months' work if he abandons the ship (PA)

A sailor has been stranded aboard a ship moored at a port in Norfolk for more than 15 months due to a legal dispute.

Captain Nikesh Rastogi was contracted as part of a 13-strong replacement crew for the offshore supply vessel Malaviya Twenty in February 2017.

The ship has been held at a port in Great Yarmouth since 2016 after its Indian owners fell into liquidation and the captain’s own employers withdrew in January 2018 after new contracts fail to materialise, he claims.

All of his original crew have returned to India, and he remains aboard with three crew members aged in their twenties who joined him in September 2017 on six-month contracts.

Capt Rastogi, 43, from Mumbai said he and his men fear they will not get paid if they leave the ship, adding the group had not received any wages since last year.

“If I were to get off the ship with everybody else the vessel is considered a derelict which means anybody can take it over,” the captain said.

They spend much of their time doing routine maintenance and performing drills, spent Christmas on the vessel and keep in touch with family at home on WhatsApp, he said.

Paul Keenan, inspector with the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), said the union's first involvement with the Malaviya Twenty was with the previous crew in 2016.

Inspectors had found 33 crew members had been on and off the vessel since October 2015 without receiving wages.

The ITF arrested the ship at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk in November 2016 and secured $688,000 (£517,000) for the asset's release to manning agents acting for the Indian Bank ICICI.

Insurers have already paid four months of back wages for some crew members and their repatriation costs, Mr Keenan said.

He claimed selling the ship would raise enough money to pay cash still outstanding to crew members and cover costs of repatriating the four remaining men to India.

But, the harbour’s owners, Peel Ports, which is also owed unpaid dues for the ship’s mooring, is using legislation from the 19th century to demand three times the amount of rates.

“It's entirely within the power of Peel Ports to resolve this,” he said.

A spokesman for the company said it would not comment on an “ongoing legal matter”.

Additional reporting by PA