Hampshire police in the UK told CNN that some crew members aboard the tanker made verbal threats to the crew.
A police spokesman, Jack Beckwell, told CNN in an email: “Concerns were raised with police about the welfare of the morning crew in Andromeda at 10:04 a.m. local time.”
“Police are working with our partners, including the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the Border Force, to bring this incident to a safe conclusion,” Beckwell said. “An excluded area with a radius of three miles is currently present near the vessel,” Beckwell added.
The ship is registered in Liberia, according to PA media. The tanker was south of the island, police said.
Many details of the incident are unclear. The British PA news agency has cited reports of an attempted hijacking by Stoveway.
In an interview with Sky News on Sunday, local MLA Bob Seeley had earlier suggested that the ship could now be controlled by the stoveway.
“Isle W White Radio reports – and they’ve got a lot of good contacts in the Coastguard – that despite being told not to leave the anchor, the captain has left the anchor and the ship can now be in control of the ship’s stoveway,” Sally said.
Two Coastguard helicopters were spotted circling the ship, according to Isle of Wight Radio, with reports that a three-mile exclusion zone had been set up around the east coast of the island, south of Sandtown.
According to maritime traffic data, the tanker departed from Lagos, Nigeria on October 6 and departed at 10:30 a.m. (6:30 a.m. ET) in Southampton on the south coast of England on Sunday. .
Instead the ship made several zig-zags away from the Isle of Wight in just a few hours.
Bob Sanguinetti, chief executive of the UK Chamber of Shipping, told Sky News that zig-zagging could be “a way to warn officials.” He said the ship would have been in contact with officials via radio.
“The uncertainty here is above Stoveways’ motives and as I said there could be nothing worse than seeking political asylum,” he said.
Fifteen to 20 members of the cruise will be on a ship of this size, Sanguinetti said.
A spokesman for the UK Ministry of Defense told CNN that the military was “not involved at this stage”.
The Maritime and Coastguard Agency said in a statement that it was assisting the Hampshire Constabulary, and that search and rescue helicopters were present.
CNN’s Sarah Dean, Nina Avarmova and Johnny Hallam contributed to the report.
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