Home state to probe sea collision

A mystery ship thought to have run down a Swedish yacht off the North Cape last month is being investigated by its home country, the Maritime Safety Authority says.

The authority said that because the collision involved two foreign ships in international waters, it had no legal mandate to investigate.

However, it had asked the ship's home country to intervene, and officials had this week asked for more information and said they would get an accident investigator on board.

The New Zealand authority did not reveal the ship's country of origin, nor its name.

The owner of the Swedish yacht Mica was left drifting in a water-logged liferaft.

Solo yachtie Alf Jaselius put out a mayday call to the Maritime Operations Centre after the 8m yacht was struck at night on November 9.

A Russian vessel rescued Mr Jaselius, by then hypothermic, from the life raft. The crew spotted on radar another ship, possibly the one that rammed him, leaving the area. The ship did not respond to the Mica's mayday.

"Until now, the MSA has had difficulty in getting either the Swedish maritime authority or the authorities in the merchant vessel's country of origin to take action," the authority's acting director of maritime safety, Bruce Maroc, said in a statement.

"I am now hopeful that the flag state of the merchant vessel in question will urgently pick up the investigation and uncover what exactly did happen on that night off the North Cape."

The authority has said it did not want to identify the vessel for "reasons of natural justice".

- NZPA