A squall was just going past and through the rain we spotted a red tanker about 6 nautical miles behind heading towards us. We ran to check AIS surprised we had missed it but it wasn’t there. We checked our transmitter was receiving and sending data and concluded that the tanker must not be on AIS!! We then used the MARPA feature on our radar to determine that we were likely on a collision course, Scary! We hailed the ship a couple of times on VHF before finally getting a response. The voice on the VHF had a Russian accent and responded with Voyager 2 being the ships name which is coincidentally an ARC boat name as well. Yes they now see us and apparently their AIS system was broken, which is highly suspect since most ships have a backup system. Anyway they were going to avoid us, I had already changed course. As they went past we noticed there wasn’t a name or a port on the stern of the vessel which set off a slew of conspiracy theories. We think this was an illegal Russian oil tanker that was flying under the radar with AIS turned off and no markings on the vessel. I have attached a photo of the tanker passing our port side. What do you think ??? ;-)
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