Controversy dogs the cargo ship Dutch Runner, docked for three years off the coast of Nova Scotia.
After three years of sitting unmanned and empty at the Port Hawkesbury pier, and after a dust-up between the new crew, its union and the ship’s owners, the 84-metre bulk carrier Dutch Runner should be en route to Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic, sometime this month.
“We’re trying to get out of there before the winter,” said Bomboy Pascual, general manager for Samee Shipping and Logistic Corp.
“We’ve been there for three years, and if there is anyone who wants to be out of there, we are the ones. We are paying dock fees for nothing.”
According to Karl Risser of the International Transport Workers Federation, quoted in a union-backed publication, five sailors living on the Dutch Runner complained that they were unpaid and living in poor conditions.