North Sea cargo ship captain waited ‘too long’ to avoid crash

The captain of a cargo ship waited “much too long” to avoid crashing into an oil tanker in the North Sea in an incident which left one of his crew members dead, a trial has heard.

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

A jury at the Old Bailey in London heard evidence from prosecution witness Capt Brian McJury who said if action was taken to change direction “there was time to avoid it”.

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

Master mariner McJury told the court: “If you are on a collision course with another vessel, which is anchored and you are doing 16 knots directly towards it, there is no benefit in waiting to make the course alteration.

“By one mile I would expect the alteration to be made some time before that. I would expect one mile to be the absolute latest to take action.

“In my opinion it was left much too long.”

Motin’s defence said he was aware he was on collision course with the Stena Immaculate via radar when it was nine nautical miles away (16km) and had visual sight of it from three nautical miles (5.5km).

The court previously heard he 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.

Asked by prosecutor Tom Little KC what he would have expected the defendant to do if taking manual control did not work, McJury said: “You have at least two people available to assist.

“So from that point forward you need to get people on the bridge.”

The trial continues.