A cargo ship captain has told a jury at the Old Bailey that he did not lose consciousness or fall asleep in the hours before the vessel he was in command of crashed.

Vladimir Motin was the only person on watch duty on the Solong when it hit US tanker Stena Immaculate off the East Yorkshire coast on 10 March 2025, leaving Mark Angelo Pernia, 38, missing presumed dead.

Motin was asked twice if he had fallen asleep at different points before the crash, to which he replied “no”.

Motin, 59, from Primorsky in St Petersburg, Russia, denies gross negligence manslaughter.

Defence barrister James Leonard KC asked if he had left the bridge to use the toilet.

Motin replied: “I never left the bridge at the material time from 08:00.”

The trial has heard in detail how Motin was using various radar systems to track Solong’s course before it hit the Stena Immaculate.

He was asked why he had not carried out a “crash stop” to avoid the collision.

Motin replied if he had then the Solong was likely to have hit the US tanker where the crew accommodation was located as opposed to the cargo compartments and the impact could have killed people.

He told the court he did not expect there would be an explosion and fire from the impact of the crash, because that was statistically low risk.

The court previously heard Motin told police he had tried to take manual control of the ship’s steering when it was one mile (1.6km) away from the Stena Immaculate, but the autopilot did not disengage.

Asked if he looked at the button when he switched to manual, Motin said: “Literally, I done it more than 1,000 times. In reality you don’t look to the button when you press it.”

Motin told jurors he then rotated the wheel starboard by 20 degrees. When nothing happened after five seconds, he increased the rudder angle to no effect.

“I thought I have no rudder at all, it’s not responding so I have to look around and see why is not responding,” he said.

Motin could see no visual alarms and checked to see that the autopilot light was off, the court was told.

He said he proceeded to stop and restart the steering gear, as he had been advised following a steering issue with a sister ship, but, Motin said, “nothing helped”.

Mr Justice Baker asked: “Did you at the time think about slowing down or did you not give it any thought at all?”

Motin replied: “I was thinking that I solve the problem soon instead of reversing the engine.”

The trial continues.
Source: BBC