17/11/2021, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain.

Vessel is under Judicial detention & control of Commercial Courts 1 & 2 of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

The last recorded owners were Estonian: 'Roberval Impex S.A., Care of Platano Eesti OU , Kolde pst 100-43, 10316 Tallinn, Estonia.'

Vessel has been twice offered for commercial auction (commencing price Euros 480,000) but has failed to find a buyer, despite being in good overall condition. The last time being, believed, in January 2021.

Despite its name of Mediterranean evocations, the 'Azure Coast' is a ship noted in recent years by various environmental and conservation organizations for its participation in the international commercialization of meat from whaling, an activity prohibited since 1987 in the signatory countries of the the International Whaling Commission but still practiced in the waters of some states, such as Iceland.

In 2018, Greenpeace singled the ship out for participating in the transport of 1,500 tonnes of fin whale meat from the Atlantic island country to Japan using the Arctic Ocean route.

It was not the first time that the freighter was used for these tasks. The Azure Coast had been carrying out these operations via the northern arctic Polar route at least since 2015, when it was still sailing under the name 'Winter Bay'.

That year, the British Society for the Conservation of Dolphins and Whales denounced that "the transport of meat from endangered fin whales in monohull boats through the northeast passage is like playing with explosives" and began a campaign to collect signatures through the Avaaz platform to ask the small Caribbean island state of Saint Kitts and Nevis to withdraw its flag, which would have prevented it from continuing with the transfer of whale meat.

Commercial Courts 1 and 2 of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria authorized its intervention and sale in autumn of 2020, for reasons that have not been specified by the Port Authority of Las Palmas, although another court order ended up suspending the procedure, and which was then itself overturned.
It has been a complex case and is not yet over!

Keel laid on 06/12/1985, launched on 27/09/1986, & completed on 06/12/1986, by Fosen Mekaniska Verkstad, Rissa, Norway (39)
2,706 g.t. & 2,050 dwt., as:
'Viktoriahamn' to 1993,
'Nordvaer' to 2014,
'Winter Bay' to 2018, &
'Azure Coast' since.

Vessel was built as a pallets carrier.
Vessel was converted to a reefer for palletized cargo in 1994.