The Sail Queen dry-cargo freighter under the Russian flag has run aground in the Aegean Sea off the Turkish coast.
The crew has expressly steered the vessel towards a sandbank, so it would not sink because of a huge hole in the hull. The ship was damaged when scraping the seabed of a strait between local islands.
The impact caused leakage that the crew was unable to fix.
The vessel is currently in shallow waters, with none of its 16-strong crew (citizens of Russia and Ukraine) reported injured.
The Sail Queen was transporting steel products from Turkey to Rostov on Don in southern Russia.
