Seven Islands Shipping is believed to have carried off a product carrier auctioned in Singapore last month.
India’s second-largest tanker owner paid between $11m and $11.3m for the ship built at Hyundai Mipo, according to brokers in the Far East and London.
Managers at the Mumbai-based company did not respond to a request for comment.
The vessel’s sale to new owners, however, is certain. As of 17 January, the Sheriff of Singapore lists the 46,900-dwt Victor 1 (built 2012) as sold and it is no longer under arrest.
Seven Islands lists a fleet of 20 owned oil carriers on its website — mostly MR2s, but also some smaller ships and two suezmaxes.
That list does not yet feature the 18,000-dwt Aeon (renamed Falcons, built 2012) — another tanker that Seven Islands is known to have picked up in an auction late last summer.
The Aeon had been arrested in India as part of a dispute between its then owner, Saint James Shipping, and US alternative ship finance lender EnTrust Global.
Saint James Shipping was involved with the Victor 1 as well, as its commercial operator — at least for a period. Court papers, however, show the company as a claimant in this case, alongside two other entities, Arte Bunkering and Global Radiance Ship Management.
The Victor I was arrested by its unpaid crew on 28 March last year. Seafarers’ demands, however, were deemed to have been settled by the time it went under the hammer.
The paperwork trail submitted into evidence by the crew shows the vessel as owned since 2016 by Savory Shipping, a Liberian single-ship entity.
At that point, it had been trading as Teesta Spirit with Teekay Corp before it was sold to clients or affiliates of Greece’s Delfi SA.
The data platform of S&P Global is still listing the Victor 1 as part of Delfi’s fleet, under the commercial operation of Saint James Shipping.
According to an e-mail sent to TradeWinds by Delfi managers, however, the Piraeus-based company has had no connection with the ship for quite some time.
Documentation provided by the crew of the Victor 1, the business relationship between the ship’s registered owners, bareboat charterers and commercial managers was occasionally acrimonious.
Auctioneers found the Victor 1 to be in overall fair condition, according to a report submitted to the Sheriff of Singapore’s office by marine surveyors from Sedgwick Singapore.
The surveyors noted that for the vessel to return to trading, expired and due surveys must be dealt with. The coating of the cargo tanks must be checked, cleaned and restored as necessary.
