As Bobbie Johnson referenced in this story, Kazi and me were lucky to have been part of a live workshop where we managed to zero in on 40 boats that would be the most likely to have come into contact with the Ghost Boat.
We made this selection looking at all the boats docked in Zuwalah or Tripoli on the night of the storm on the 27th of June, as we know from a phone call one of the passengers made that the boat did not leave during the storm and was docked at the time — with these 40 other ships.
This is the list of 40 boats we had compiled at the workshop. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hy-xYJDcwvFEWZVEUWiawDop2UV5W0QkcVhlLcinyG0/edit#gid=0 Using https://www.vesselfinder.com/ we should help in filling out another column consisting of the present location of those 40 ships, so if they are docked on the way, Eric Reidy can drop by.
Using this list, I have found two good leads based on the IMOs of ships registered in Libya (the far right column). It makes more sense to look for ships that were registered in countries closer on the map to Eritrea and Sudan or the ones which speak a similar language — they would be more likely to have spoken with Ibrahim or Measho or the passengers as compared to an Italian captain who does not speak their language.
I chose to look at the two ships coming from Libya, IMO 9313424 and 9277840, which were docked in Tripoli port. The first step is plugging these IMOs into http://www.equasis.org/EquasisWeb/public/HomePage?fs=HomePage . When they ask for a registration, use the email ID [email protected] with password ghostboat. It’s a free registration, but it beats having to create a new account.
After logging in, click on ship search on the top right and enter the IMO of the ship you want to know more about.
When I plug in IMO 9277840 for instance, a dashboard pops up with country flag, type of ship, gross tonnage, etc. Scroll a little lower and you’ll see a company name, COMAFISH— thats whats important.
Once you have the company name of the ship you are interested in pursuing, go to imonumbers.ihs.com http://imonumbers.ihs.com/default.aspx . The log in is [email protected] and the password is fatafea. Click on the companies section, enter the company name of the ship you found on the previous site, and you’ll get the parent company owning that company and the ship, with its address. This is what we were looking for all along.
In this case, IMO 9277840 belongs to COMAFISH, company IMO 5750215, which is located on Khalid Ben Waled Street, Tripoli, Libya . No phone numbers of theirs pops up. Using vessel trackers you can plug in the ship IMO to see where the ship is currently located https://www.vesselfinder.com/ . In this case, IMO 9277840 arrived in Tripoli on October 1st, 2015 and is currently at Marsa Al Burayqah, Libya. If Eric Reidy hurries, he might be able to catch this ship while it is in Libya. He can also pay a visit to the Comafish address listed at Khalid Ben Waled Street and perhaps speak to the ship crew directly from the office.
As regards the other ship docked in Tripoli at the time and registered in Libya having IMO 9313424, the parent company is General National Maritime Transport Co. (GNMTC). Their IMO company number is 0098136 and address is Mahlet Alwahda Alarabia, PO Box 80173, Gergarish Road, Abu Nawas, Tripoli, Libya. The ship itself is currently at Greece currently.
Hope this helps. Feel free to replicate these steps on any of the other 40 boats in the list — we never know which boat might be docked in Libya at the moment and will provide the missing puzzle piece.
