Drunken Sailor?

[Afishionado]

 

Drunk cargo skipper sent to jail

 

The cargo ship was due to sail to Cornwall from Southampton Water

A ship's skipper has been jailed for four months after being found almost four times over the drink-drive limit.

Captain Vlad Dushyn, 49, was sentenced on Thursday after earlier pleading guilty to being over the limit.

 

The court was told that coastguard surveyors boarded the cargo ship Hoo Tern on 5 July as it was about to depart Southampton for Falmouth.

 

Dushyn, from the Ukraine, was found to have 136 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath.

 

The man with command of the ship, which was carrying five other people, was not in any fit state to carry out his duties safely

 

Neil Atkinson, Maritime and Coastguard Agency

 

The legal limit is 35 micrograms.

 

Sentencing Dushyn, Judge David Griffiths said: "It is plainly a serious matter for the master of a ship to be over the legal limit with the potential for risk to public safety.

 

"This was a very serious offence for which only a custodial sentence is appropriate."

 

Speaking after the hearing, Neil Atkinson, the attending Maritime and Coastguard Agency surveyor, said: "This is a particularly bad case.

 

"The vessel was about to sail and the man with command of the ship, which was carrying five other people, was not in any fit state to carry out his duties safely."

 

Mad Mike