All 13 crew of the dry cargo ship BYB Othello were brought safely ashore on 6 November 2026. The ship lost engine power and ran aground near Anadolu Feneri, at the north exit of the Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey.
Turkey's Directorate General of Coastal Safety (KEGM) and Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu confirmed the facts. Anadolu Agency reported the same details on the same day.
What happened
The 97-metre ship was sailing from Kocaeli, Turkey, toward Izmail, Ukraine. The first distress call came at 02:41 local time. The ship had a main engine failure. It ran aground at 03:56 in heavy weather near Anadolu Feneri.
KEGM sent the boat Bayrak-1 and the tugs Kurtarma-6 and Kurtarma-11. Bad wind and sea conditions made a rescue from the water unsafe. The master asked for evacuation. Shore rescue teams took over.
How the shore rescue worked
Rescuers used a traditional shore system called a breeches buoy in English. In Turkish reports it is called varagele. A line is sent from the shore to the ship. People sit in a life ring or chair and are pulled ashore one by one.
The team set up the system at 06:12. The first crew member reached shore at 06:28. All 13 were ashore by 06:55. The minister said none had health problems from the rescue. First checks found no clear oil pollution in the sea.
The ship stayed aground after the crew left. Salvage work is a separate step. Maritime Executive said the ship is registered in St Kitts and Nevis and was built in 2008. Crewboard uses the Turkish official reports for the rescue facts.
What crews should do now
If the main engine fails near a coast in bad weather, call for help early. Use VHF channel 16 and your GMDSS equipment. Give your position, ship name, people on board, and the problem.
Do not wait until the ship is already on the rocks. Early notice gives the rescue centre time to send boats, tugs, or a shore team.
Know your abandon-ship plan. Check that lifejackets, immersion suits, and liferafts are ready and clear. In this case the crew left by a shore line, not by liferaft.
Keep engines, steering, and emergency power in good order. An engine failure in a strong current or gale can put the ship on the beach in minutes.
Other grounding rescues with lessons for crews include a cargo boat on a reef in the Maldives.
See also a fishing boat aground in South Korea.
Official help lines and certificate checks are on Crewboard's useful links.
Cover photo: General cargo ship Palladiy in the Bosphorus, Istanbul. Illustrative photo of a cargo ship in the strait, not BYB Othello. Photo: Alexxx1979/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Sources: Anadolu Agency: 13 crew evacuated from cargo ship aground off Anadolu Feneri (6 Nov 2026), NTV: ship aground off Beykoz, 13 crew evacuated (quoting Minister Uraloğlu), Maritime Executive: Turkish Coast Guard evacuates crew from grounded ship BYB Othello (6 Nov 2026).
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