to take control of that. at some point, perhaps as they neared southampton, the stowaways or stowaway had other ideas and decided to take matters into their own hands. but, so far as our source is concerned, they say the crew took refuge in this citadel, so there is no suggestion from that source that any of the crew have been harmed. but whether the stowaway or stowaways have been able to do anything with the ship or are just outside this room, those details are not yet clear. bob sanguinetti is the chief executive of the uk chamber of shipping and former a commodore in the royal navy. thank you very much for being with us on thank you very much for being with us on bbc news. the first thing to ask you is what you ve been able to establish about what was going on and what might still be going on board the tanker? i think your reporter duncan has outlined where the situation appears to be but of course, most of it is based on second or third hand information.
tobias ellwood. just weeding out those details that ijust just weeding out those details that i just broadcast to just weeding out those details that ijust broadcast to our ears reading out those, are those the details as you understand them as to what took place this evening? yes. firstly, it is good news of this outcome. we have been watching this all day. seven stowaways on board ticking over a shipper causing it not to be in full command would have triggered a multi agency alarm and then well rehearsed protocols, were then well rehearsed protocols, were then put into action. hampshire police remained the lead agency, and would have considered a wide range of responses. initially it didn t look like this was terrorist related, nor involving wmd, but the erratic behaviour, it was concerning. the safety of the crew is important, as it is indeed any unauthorised movement towards the coast. i m pleased to see that swift
that comes from senior officials within the ship that was the point at which it became problematic for the crew to deal with and then various authorities were contacted earlier today that we are working on the assumption that the crew boarded, the stowaways boarded the vessel in lagos. now, that puts them on board the ship for nearly 20 days because they left lagos on october the 6th. so whether or not they have been on board and dealing with the crew happily until now or it was only this morning that they were discovered, we just don t know yet. but for whatever reason, it was this morning that it escalated. going back to the stowaways, you came out very early with the information on how many were on board this afternoon. you also initially said that it was understood that they boarded the vessel from various ports. are we now shall, as it really been confirmed they all boarded in lagos? it s not been
there are implications of what would happen next? in terms of the security of navigation, the priority is to get the ship docked and to understand exactly what is going on. there will be questions asked, in terms of how stowaways could get on board a ship, there should be security protocols to prevent this. it s not unheard of. it s a fairly routine occurrence in shipping. security protocols are not applied as robustly as they perhaps should be in all ports and lagos is known to have some security issues. the point at which this becomes a uk issue, uk immigration will be involved and as your reporter already said, there are various security agencies and the maritime coastguard agency will be dealing with the safety of navigation as the situation is dealt with. this is a liberian flagged vessel, what sort of responsibilities does the flag state have on this question might looking through maritime law, those stowaways could well be sent back to
live cruise terminals are just down the mersey. after that it will be open sea trials and the next stop will be some of the most extreme environments on earth. 129 metres long with large on board laboratories and a whole macro designed to cut to ice up to a metre thick. this is a ship specifically designed to allow scientists to spend at extended time in extreme conditions. they plan to use the ship to find out what is happening ina ship to find out what is happening in a fragile and frozen environment. the new ship will allow us to do science in ice covered waters. so it has all the technology and the capabilities to take us into areas that we ve never been before to do new kinds of science. after leaving liverpool, the ship will sail across the north wales coast to holyhead, which will be her base for sea trials over the next year. but in another pandemic twist, the ship is