A Greek-controlled bulker that was the last vessel listed in the fleet of Piraeus-based Liberty Management is going under the hammer in China later this month.

The 53,500-dwt Polestar (built 2006) was arrested in October over unpaid seafarers’ wages and has since been docked at the port of Zhenjiang, TradeWinds has learned.

Wuhan Maritime Court is putting the Imabari-built vessel up for electronic auction on 26 February, after the Chinese New Year holidays. The starting price is CNY 49.62m ($7.8m), with the deposit at CNY 7.5m. There is an undisclosed reserve price.

Liberty executives did not respond to an email seeking comment or clarification regarding the vessel or the company's future.

According to information from the International Labour Organization, the Polestar and its 19 Ukrainian crew were abandoned in July last year.

Repatriation of the crew is said to have been paid for by protection-and-indemnity club the West of England Ship Owners Mutual Insurance Association, and completed in September.

Liberty and its predecessor, Dynasty Shipping, have been led by different members of the Vazeos family since the 1990s. Liberty was listed with as many as four ships in 2008, after which the size of its fleet began to shrink.

Another bulker Liberty has recently parted ways with is the 46,600-dwt Blue Sand (built 1998). The Blue Sand had been lying off Zhoushan, China, for several months in 2016.

The vessel eventually changed hands at the end of that year, when it was taken over by new Chinese owners. It has been trading as the EJ Ocean since. The conditions under which the Blue Sand changed hands remain unclear.

Liberty link

Market sources are also linking Liberty to the 42,600-dwt Theoxenia (built 1997) — a bulker arrested last year by National Bank of Greece in the Indian port of Kakinada.

Until that time, the vessel had been managed by Theoxenia Shipping, which shares a Piraeus address with Liberty.

In December 2017, the Bombay High Court sold the Theoxenia at auction for a mere $2.45m. The ship's buyers have yet to be identified, but they may be Greek again.

Some online shipping directories are listing the ship under a new Greek name, Kassiani.