For readers in the UK, the song “Rein Me In” by the singer-songwriters Sam Fender and Olivia Dean is probably now very familiar. It reached number one on the UK Singles Chart in February and is still there today, becoming the longest running number-one single in the whole of British music history. "Rein Me In" also topped the charts in Australia and Ireland, as well as reaching number two in New Zealand, and number three in the Netherlands.
This week, we look at one marine company with a self-identified visionary leader who might need reining in. It’s an Indian owner/operator of offshore support vessels (OSVs) where one of its master mariners has publicly demanded his bosses cease their efforts to force him and his crew to transit the Strait of Hormuz in the middle of the conflict between Iran and the United States.
We refer of course to Alphard Maritime, owners and managers of the Marshall Islands-flagged, 2006-built platform supply vessel (PSV) AM Pioneer, the former Bourbon Helene, which Alphard bought in late 2025. Alphard is also the owner of another nine OSVs and other bulk carriers, with vessels operating in India and Nigeria. The company is led by Captain Alok Kumar, who is modestly described as “the visionary founder and chairman” on the company website.
In this social media post earlier this month, the master of AM Pioneer, Anil Raj, highlighted that he was under pressure to sail the ship from Ras Al Khaimah in the UAE through the blockaded Strait of Hormuz. I bet the visionary founder didn’t see that coming!
“The company is trying to push us through Hormuz in a crooked way and put our lives in danger,” Captain Raj said in the video, which was shot on the bridge of the ship, and which showed several crewmembers standing behind the captain. He said that, “the company is putting the blame on me.”
Raj claimed that the company had asked him to make the crossing of the strait in a conversation that was heard by many of the deck and engine officers on board, an account that was then denied by the company. He said that Alphard then tried to hire a private security organisation to assist with the transit, and had also requested the American military to provide air cover for the vessel. Several of the crew in the video indicated that they were not willing to make the transit until it was safe to do so with the straits being open.
This reluctance is not surprising as the IMO reports that 19 seafarers have been killed in the conflict so far and 70 vessels have been attacked. Like the crew of AM Pioneer, most of the victims have been Indian nationals.
Alphard has been quick to react to the allegations… and the vessel is no longer visible on its website.
The Forward Seamen’s Union of India (FSUI) has asked the Indian Government to step in. However, like its compatriot the Adani Group, the owners of Astro Offshore, to which Alphard sold two vessels in West Africa last year (the PSVs AM Paradise and AM Prosperity, which were built in 2020 and 2023, respectively), Alphard has risen to prominence with the support of the ruling BJP Party in India.
Prity Kumar, the Vice-Chairperson and co-founder of Alphard, was quick to post congratulations to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of Bihar on social media as she celebrated, “the historic victory of NDA in the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections.”
The FSUI called on the Ministry of External Affairs, the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, and the Directorate General of Shipping to take immediate action to protect the 16 Indian nationals on the vessel. So far, no public response has been given by any the Indian authorities, and the Marshall Islands flag has not issued any statement, either.
The vessel remains at Ras Al Khaimah, having not yet crossed the strait at the time of writing. It is also not clear whether Captain Raj is still aboard.
Once again, the commercial pressure that Captain Raj claimed was placed on him by the company to put his vessel and his crew into the line of fire stands in stark contrast to the corporate BS that appears on the Alphard website. Talk is cheap, it seems.
Alphard claimed on the site that its management are, "steering excellence across global waters, [and] built on trust, maritime expertise, and operational precision."
Fortunately for Captain Raj and his crew, Alphard said that its operations, "are designed with sustainability in mind, minimising risks while achieving optimal results” (which must be why he claimed that the company asked the American military to help protect the proposed transit)
Finally, I am sure all readers will be relieved to see that “integrity and honesty” are core values for Alphard, where, “transparency and ethical conduct are at the heart of [its] operations,” and that “personal accountability” is another key consideration.
“We hold ourselves accountable for the outcomes and success of every project we undertake,” the company said.
So, clearly the people in the Alphard leadership who tried to compel the crew to put their lives at risk for commercial advantage will be apologising and ensuring that there is no retribution against the captain, right?
Right?
In fact, August has been a bad month for Alphard.
On August 18, the Maritime Administrator of the Republic of the Marshall Islands issued a safety investigation report into a fire on board the company’s 2006-built, DP2, 87 tons bollard pull anchor handler AM Pride (the former Lewek Harrier, which Alphard acquired in February 2024).
The ship suffered a serious fire in September 2024, which led to the abandonment of the vessel off South Africa. It was subsequently rescued adrift and blacked out by a salvage tug. Thankfully, nobody was killed or seriously hurt, but the Marshall Islands report made it clear that this was mostly a matter of luck.
The flag state pointed out that it publishes marine safety investigations of marine casualties and incidents to promote the safety of life and property at sea and to promote the prevention of pollution. The Marshall Islands stressed that marine safety investigations conducted by the administrator do not seek to apportion blame or determine liability.
We welcome responsible flag states that publish their investigations, as this enables lessons learned to be cascaded through the industry and shared widely to prevent recurrence.
And there are quite a few lessons from the events on AM Pride that fateful day. As normal, the industry press has been much quicker to publish news of the fire than news of the excellent investigation report into the causes and the lessons learned. I know myself that if I write a piece of some horrible industry catastrophe, I will get far more clicks and likes on X than when I publish a piece on how to prevent such incidents.
The vessel was under the management of V.Ships Offshore at the time of the incident. Most of the officers and crew were both new to the vessel and new to V.Ships, and there had been an 80 per cent crew change around the week before the fire broke out.
The facts of the incident speak for themselves. The investigator concluded that most likely, movement or spillage of goods or liquids introduced moisture into the sockets on the port side bulkhead of the recreation room, which caused an electrical tracking defect that ignited the conflagration.
Adding to the problem was what happened when the sockets in the recreation room developed the fault that caused the fire, according to the Marshall Islands report:
“[the room] was used as a storage space containing plastic parts for the ongoing replacement of sanitary facilities in the accommodation, cleaning liquids, aerosol cans, bottled drinking water, a mattress, a stock of safety shoes, stored electrical items such as a water cooler, windscreen wiper motors, spare CCTV cameras, and a television. An exact inventory was not kept by the crewmembers.”
The report noted that, “there was no indication that possible fire hazards had been assessed as part of a management of change process before converting this room into a storage space.” Really?
The fire was spotted at 10:00 as dense smoke filled the accommodation, but the crew were never able to establish where it was located, so they mustered rather chaotically, then blacked out the ship and left on a helicopter, leaving the vessel drifting near PetroSA’s FA Platform:
“Many doors inside the accommodation, including fire doors, were open and the ventilation was operating in full recirculation mode when the fire broke out. These conditions facilitated the smoke rapidly spreading through the entire accommodation and complicated the determination of the source of the fire and subsequent firefighting activities.
"Around 11:00, it was observed that crewmembers had not succeeded in locating the exact source of the fire or in controlling the fire. Subsequently, the master decided to lock down the accommodation and engine room and to shut down the main engines. Arrangements were made for the evacuation of the vessel by helicopter.”
There’s a whole sorry saga preceding the fire that does not reflect well on the managers nor the crew, nor on the ship’s flags and class societies.
The vessel had been flipped to the Singaporean flag from South Africa in January 2024 before joining the Marshall Islands registry in February of that year, when it was sold to Alphard from the remnants of bankrupt Emas Offshore. The vessel had been subject to port state inspection in February just after it was sold to Alphard.
One of the findings of the South African port state inspection was that the fire door between the mess room and the galley was malfunctioning. It was in this same mess room where the Marshall Islands investigation identified the most likely source of the catastrophic blaze in September.
The defect was reported as closed in March, just before the vessel changed class from Lloyd’s Register to the Indian Register of Shipping (IRS). It is not clear what verification and validation of the closing of the port state IRS undertook when it took over the classification of AM Pride.
On May 28, 2024, a Marshall Islands flag state safety inspection was carried out on board the ship. The inspector observed that the stairwell fire doors inside the accommodation were not self-closing and reported that the doors needed to be repaired and/or adjusted.
On July 5, 2024, pictures were received by the flag state demonstrating that the required repairs and adjustments had been made, at least according to the then managers.
After the fire broke out on the morning of September 12, 2024, the crew’s efforts to suppress and even locate the source of the blaze were unsuccessful. The report noted that ten SCBA sets and 25 cylinders were available on board.
However, the equipment had not been collected in the initial stage of the fire and nobody could recall where the used sets were taken. Crewmembers were not familiar with the amount of equipment and its location, the investigation found. The ETO on board reported that he did not participate as a team member in the fire party, because his cylinder was empty. It had been replaced by an empty cylinder, as no full cylinders were available.
The vessel’s air compressor could not be used to refill SCBA cylinders, as it could not be connected to an electrical source. No power was available at the muster station, and the closest electrical supply reportedly was inside the accommodation, which was full of smoke and could not be accessed without the SCBA sets.
Contributing to the botched response on board, the ship’s fire and safety plan did not indicate the fire zones and boundaries. An overview of the fire doors within the accommodation could not be located during the investigation on board afterwards, and the Marshall Islands concluded that this information was not permanently exhibited.
Despite multiple changes in vessel registration and a change of classification society, no remark had been formulated by any of the attending inspectors. Multiple doors, including fire doors, were left open when the crew mustered and during the firefighting. It was reported during the interviews that some doors, including the door from the galley to the mess, were routinely kept open. Regular safety inspections on board did not include verification that fire doors were closed, or tied or otherwise held open.
Fender and Dean open their duet with, “And I let go of everything I ever had 'cause I couldn't give the love you deserved.”
In the case of AM Pride, everything had to be let go and the ship abandoned because the source of the fire was never found or tackled, and poor practises allowed toxic smoke to accumulate through the vessel’s accommodation.
Efforts to abandon ship were similarly slapdash, as the report highlighted:
“Shortly after mustering, a starboard side liferaft was launched for safety reasons, but due to bad weather, the liferaft painter was cut by the razor wire that had been installed in preparation for AM Pride’s planned operations off Nigeria, and the liferaft drifted clear of AM Pride.”
Given that the vessel was then off Mossel Bay, not known for its piracy off the rugby pitch, and over 2,000 nautical miles from Nigeria and the high risk area in the Gulf of Guinea, this was… unfortunate.
There are five recommendations in the flag state report, which are relevant to every ship in the world, and have been ever since Steve McQueen battled The Towering Inferno (1974):
(a) Conduct a gap analysis to determine the maximum number of crew in rotation at any given time to ensure corporate knowledge of critical safety systems, roles, and responsibilities are maintained on board;
(b) Ensure that information related to emergencies is accessible and user-friendly;
(c) Ensure that fire control and safety plans comply with applicable regulations;
(d) Evaluate and revise the regular inspections of shipboard equipment and locations to ensure that inspected equipment can be readily identified; and
(e) Review and adapt the installation and handling of emergency response equipment to prevent that security measures restrict or hamper the availability and use of lifesaving equipment.
TL:DR; these can be summarised as, “shut the fire doors, and keep them closed at all times, know where the firefighting equipment is, and make sure you can use it.”
In light of the events in the UAE on AM Pioneer, we can probably add another recommendation for Alok and Prity Kumar: “Don’t ask your crew to risk their lives in a war zone for your commercial advantage.”
As the lyrics to “Rein Me In” go, “I wish I knew these things when I was young, 'cause now I've just gone so numb.”
It’s not too late to learn, and the Marshall Islands has done a great job of analysing a fire that should have never led to such pandemonium. Captain Raj has also been very bold to publicise the pressure under which he was placed while in the UAE.
Let’s hope that Alphard can build back the “trust, maritime expertise, and operational precision” with which it claims to operate.
It looks like Britoil’s fleet expansion drive shows no sign of being reined in, despite the conflict in the Middle East. The Hartnoll family-controlled company, which is the offshore affiliate to X-Press Feeders, recently announced on Linkedin that it had acquired three PSVs from Turkish interests and one from Seacor.
The Turkish state oil company’s contractors have recently upgraded their fleet with the purchase of higher specification, Ulstein-designed 4,200DWT vessels from Golden Energy and are disposing of their lower specification, older tonnage.
Britoil bought three 16-year-old and one 19-year-old vessels, and has renamed them Britoil Paragon, Britoil Pioneer, Britoil Power (the former Seacor Defiance), and Britoil Progress. This has now taken the company’s offshore fleet beyond 70 vessels.
For 20 years, these have a popular PSV design, but their limited accommodation and fuel-thirsty diesel-mechanical main engines mean that they have been superseded by larger capacity and more MGO-economical diesel electric designs.
No price was given for the purchase. To me, this looks like growth for growth’s sake.
On Friday last week, the US Government announced a deal to take control of 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s oil after it reached an agreement with the government of Venezuela to grant a currently unnamed US-led company 100-year concessions over 17 oil fields, which account for more than a fifth of Venezuela’s reserves.
President Donald Trump called the agreement the “biggest oil deal in world history,” whilst Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodríguez said the deal would bring more than US$100 billion of investment to the country, without specifying who owned the deal, how long the investment would take to be made, and what the role the state oil company PDVSA would play.
The deal united all aspects of Venezuelan politics against the oil theft deal. On Saturday, the Financial Times reported that Rafael Ramírez, who was president of PDVSA from 2004 to 2014, and energy minister from 2002 to 2014, said that the agreement represented “the greatest looting in our country’s history”. Given he served under Hugo Chavez, that is quite a statement.
This Saturday, demonstrators took to the streets of Caracas waving signs that read, “Yankees out of Venezuela.”
The Financial Times also reported that William Rodríguez, a former member of Congress for the ruling United Socialist Party, said the agreement was “the greatest oil betrayal in the history of the country”, and that it had not been discussed in parliament and that it violated the constitution.
Will anybody rein in President Trump in Venezuela? These situations, whereby a powerful country seeks to control the natural resources of a smaller and poorer one, usually do not end up well for either party.
Ask the Belgians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the British in Iran, and every foreigner ever in South America.