The Alithini II is one of those hundreds of tankers that sail without any great stories behind it. She is dedicated to transporting chemical products and these are distributed in different tanks in her hull. Its 185 meters in length and 32 meters in width (length and width) cover seas and oceans at an average speed of eight knots, about 14 kilometers per hour, which makes their journeys long and, in good weather conditions, even tedious. During those days at sea, the crew members have their time occupied with the tasks assigned on board based on their position.
In the second half of October, the Alithini II passed close to the Balearic Islands during its navigation between Lavera, an important industrial port west of Marseille, and Lagos, in Nigeria. There where she was anchored for several days, just two weeks after leaving France. The ship, which since its construction in 2008 has already had four flags and as many names, was later able to moor at one of the loading and unloading docks in the Nigerian economic capital. She spent four more days there and undertook a return trip to Europe, leaving Lake Lagos on the morning of November 17.
The stay in port was more than enough time for four people to get on board, possibly from the water, climbing over the rudder to its top. There they would pass through the limera, the space through which the rudder stock enters the hull through its lower part. They hid and took advantage of the isolated space that was already inside to take shelter during the very long eleven days of navigation between Lagos and the Puerto de la Luz and Las Palmas, in Gran Canaria, where the enormous and noisy propeller, which they always kept in march and a few meters away, it stopped when the ship was left outside the Reina Sofia dock, where it was anchored for a few hours.
Possibly then, seeing that the boat had stopped and the deafening noise of the engines and propeller breaking the waters had ceased, they leaned over the upper part of the rudder to see where they were. Located in such a precarious situation, the ship ended up entering the port in the middle of the afternoon to moor at an unusual pier for industrial ships: Santa Catalina, from where the cruise ships that call at the capital of Gran Canaria operate and where the vessels of the Maritime Safety and Rescue Society of this port.
Sources consulted by La Vanguardia point out that it is “impossible” that they traveled “at the helm” all the time. However, the same sources, who usually work on ships with the same characteristics as the Alithini II, point out as a hypothesis that the stowaways had to start the trip in another area of ??the ship.
The great risk assumed by the people who took shelter in the small hole where the rudder stock enters the hull also reminds those who risk doing it by air. The latest known is the case of a young Kenyan who in January of this year managed to evade the security of the Nairobi airport to hide in the landing gear hole of a Boeing 747 freighter bound for Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He survived because he practically hibernated in that unpressurized hole, freezing cold and with minimal oxygen.
The 20-year-old was lucky and was able to report it, unlike others who end up being crushed by the wheels when the planes pick up the train, fall into the void during takeoff or landing, or get lost at sea if they escape by boat. The four people who have arrived in the Canary Islands, spending ten days in an unlikely part to travel across the ocean in a possibly unknown direction, have also been lucky in the dramatic situation that such a risky escape entails. There are many similar stories that do not transcend, because they have ended prematurely or directly badly.
