Within 2 months of Mackey’s inspection, the Lyubov Orlova and its crew would be abandoned in the harbor by the vessel’s owner, as lawsuits and liens piled up. In fact, it would be nearly 3 years before the Lyubov Orlova would leave St. John’s Harbor. When it finally did, the vessel, named for a Soviet movie star, was described in international headlines as a “cannibal rat-infested ghost ship” drifting on a crash course toward Britain. But the Lyubov Orlova never made it across the Atlantic; it’s believed to be rotting somewhere at the bottom of it. The Lyubov Orlova’s journey from cruise ship to ghost ship left financial hardships, a humanitarian emergency and a political controversy in its wake.

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