The Most Dangerous Tanker on the Baltic Sea
A highly-visual post!
We spent weeks analyzing the tankers carrying oil out of Russian ports in the Baltic Sea. We knew they were dangerous, but we wanted to understand exactly how dangerous. That is how we discovered the Ailana.
The Ailana is 23 years old. It lacks an ice class rating and has no credible insurance. Its actual owner is hidden behind a Hong Kong-based corporate advisor. Even Russia deemed the vessel “high-risk” as early as 2023. It regularly performs ship-to-ship oil transfers—an maneuver regarded as exceptionally risky—and currently carries 100,000 tons of sanctioned Russian crude oil.
These are just a few of the 15 risk factors we identified. After analyzing more than 700 shadow-fleet tankers that sailed through the Gulf of Finland over the last three months, these markers allowed us to designate the Ailana the most dangerous tanker in the Baltic Sea.
When we identified the Ailana, we didn’t want to describe it solely through compliance reports and public data; we wanted to show it to our readers. We rented a small plane and sent a photographer and reporter into the sky to capture the vessel as it pressed through the frozen Gulf of Finland.
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We were fortunate to catch it passing between Tallinn and Helsinki on a crisp February morning. As the sun rose, our photographer captured really striking images.
However, the Ailana is far from the only threat. We detected approximately one hundred tankers with a similar number of “red flags.” It is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Since roughly 40% of all tankers leaving Russian ports in the Baltic Sea lack credible P&I insurance, the fallout from an oil spill would be financially and ecologically devastating.
We consulted maritime scientists at Tallinn University of Technology to model how a spill of 30,000 tons of crude oil would spread based on the Ailana’s route and specific weather conditions. Although the graph is in Estonian, the takeaway is clear: if an accident had occurred between Tallinn and Helsinki on a specific day last December, most of the oil would have reached the shores and beaches of Estonia’s Lahemaa National Park.
Despite being sanctioned by the EU, UK, Canada, Australia, Ukraine, and Switzerland, nothing stops the Ailana from sailing. Since joining the shadow fleet, it has changed flags five times, operating companies four times, names three times, and owners twice. It currently operates under the flag of Sierra Leone.
“Sierra Leone is a dreadful flag and is being used by floating rust buckets,“ Michelle Wiese Bockmann, one of the world’s leading shipping experts, told us.
We traced the Ailana’s current owner to a Hong Kong-registered company, Delphyx Beacon Ltd. We called the nominal owner, a local corporate service provider with a history appearing in the Panama Papers. His name is Wai Man Chan, though he also goes by Raymond.
When we spoke to Raymond, it was telling how long it took him to even recognize the name of the company he supposedly owns.
The tanker is managed by Azerbaijan-registered Nautilus Fleet Management. Its registered address is a dormitory in the town of Sumqayit that houses refugees. The legal representative for Nautilus Fleet is a Georgian man with high-level political family connections.
We also spoke with two crew members working aboard the Ailana. Surprisingly, they claimed the ship is in “relatively good shape” compared to other shadow-fleet tankers.
One man shared an experience from a previous ship that had a hole in its hull; the crew had to constantly pump out leaking water. “We worked like that for months,” he said.
Working on tankers is considered the pinnacle of a sailor’s career, which is why sanctions are often ignored. The pay is also significant—a second mate can earn as much as $15,000 a month.
The crew members we interviewed seemed unfazed by the threat of sanctions. They told us about the tanker Marinera, which was seized by the U.S. in the Atlantic Ocean. “The men later wrote in crew chat groups that they were briefly reprimanded, then released, and everything was fine. To them, sanctions are primarily a bureaucratic nuisance,” one man explained.
This investigation was a collaboration between the investigative desks of Helsingin Sanomat and Delfi Estonia. A huge shoutout to the entire team: Oliver Kund, Kaur Maran, Greete Palgi, Holger Roonemaa, Nathaniel Peutherer (all Delfi), Sami Sillanpää, Jarno Liski, Juho Salminen, Aleksandr Atasuntsev (all Helsingin Sanomat). Photos by Marko Mumm and visuals by Madli Utt, Linda Vainomäe and Mart Nigola.