Greek Ferry Crew Blames Sinking On Bad Weather
The crew of Greek ferry Express Samina that sank killing 72 people blamed the disaster on bad weather, saying the ship would not obey commands. "The weather threw me on the rocks," one of the charged crewmembers said. The vessel's captain Vassilis Yannakis and three other crewmembers have been charged with manslaughter and were being held on Syros pending further investigation into how the ferry hit an islet and sunk shortly before reaching the island of Paros. Authorities are still mulling over how the ship, which was carrying more than 500 passengers, could have hit a well-charted islet with a lighthouse less than two miles from the shore. Witnesses have expressed that some of the crewmembers had been watching a soccer game on television just before the accident occurred.
Minoan Subsidiary Picks Up Three More Vessels
Minoan Lines' 70 percent-owned subsidiary Minoan Flying Dolphins has maintained its very active buying spree of late with the announcement that it has acquired three ferries from the shipping family Nomikos for an undisclosed amount. The ferries are F/B Anemos, F/B Lemnos and F/B Macedon. F/B Anemos services the sea route linking the port of Piraeus with the islands of Ikaria and Samos in the Dodecannese, also making stops in the Cycladic islands. The other two ferries operate in the routes to the Sporades island group. Minoan Flying Dolphins (MDF) said the three ferries have a combined annual turnover of about 2.05 billion drachmas ($6.51 million), carrying 300,000 passengers and 50,000 cars to the Sporades annually and 125,000 passengers to the Dodecannese destinations.
