Thirty-two crew are reported to be missing from an Iranian Suezmax tanker which collided with a Chinese bulk carrier in the East China Sea on Saturday night. The 160,000 DWT tanker, Sanchi, collided with the bulk carrier CF Crystal, which was loaded with 64,000 tonnes of grain, about 160 nautical miles (296 km) off the coast of Shanghai. The Sanchi is afloat and on fire and leaking oil. 30 Iranian and two Bangladeshis crew from Sanchi are missing. The 21 crew aboard the CF Crystal have all been rescued.
Eight Chinese ships have been sent for the search-and-rescue operation, according to China’s official Xinhua news agency. South Korea has also sent a coastguard ship and a helicopter to aid the relief effort. Poor weather and huge plumes of smoke rising from the tanker are making rescue attempts difficult, Mohammad Rastad, head of Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organisation, told Iranian television.
A review of 
Sanctions do not mean much if they are not enforced. The UN has been imposing increasingly stricter limitations on the importation of crude and refined oil to North Korea. Still, oil has been getting through. In the past few days, South Korea has seized two tankers; the 
Back in June, 
Four years ago, the yacht racing world was caught aback when 
It is brutally cold on the Northeast coast of the US right now. Temperatures are hovering around the 20s F (in negative digits measured when in Celcius) from Virgina to the Canadian border. It is so cold there are reports of sharks freezing. Two thresher sharks were found dead on a Cape Cod beach, believed disabled by cold shock, which led to their stranding and death. 
This year’s 
We hope that everyone is having a most merry Christmas. Here is a repost from 2014 of a poem by