Cargo Ship Slams into Bosphorus Strait Villa

The cargo ship M/V Majed and Randy crashed into a fashionable villa on Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait on July 21st closing ships traffic on the major waterway. There was no marine pilot onboard the vessel when it suffered a propulsion malfunction.

The 6,476 ton vessel is owned by Farah-M Shipping and flagged in Sierra Leone. The Bosphorus Strait is the world’s narrowest waterway used for commercial marine traffic and it forms the boundary between Asia and Europe. It is the only maritime outlet for Russian oil and other commodities from the Black Sea. An estimated 10,000 oil tankers carry about 150 million tons of petroleum products through the strait each year.

The Coast Guard deployed tugboats and a pilot to assist the M/V Majed and Randy, which remained anchored in the area of the collision. There are no immediately plans to re-open the strait at this time. There were no injuries due to the allision incident.

During the Crimea – Russian conflict in July 2014, the M/V Majed and Randy was docked at a Sevastopol grain terminal. According to Russian authorities Crimea was exporting grain to Saudi Arabia and Northern Cyprus, which was against E.U. sanctions

IMO: 8000305
Name: Majed and Randy
MMSI: 667002231
Type: General Cargo
Gross Tonnage: 3905
Summer DWT: 6476 t
Build: 1980
Flag: Sierra Leone
Home port: Freetown