A drunken Russian ship’s captain was minutes from running his 82 metre freighter aground off Sjællands Odde during the night after he fell soundly asleep on the bridge, with his vessel only saved by rescue personnel lowered onto the deck.

It was in the early hours of Friday that Admiral Fleet Denmark (SOK) observed the Bahamas-flagged vessel dangerously close to the coast and dispatched a helicopter to investigate.

“The helicopter flew alongside the ship and shone its light right into the captain’s face. He was sitting in a chair fast asleep,” says Duty Officer Boye Rasmussen of the Central and West Zealand Police.

A rescue officer was lowered onto the deck to raise the Russian captain as the vessel made rapidly for the coast.

“He went on deck and tried to wake the captain but couldn’t. The captain just kept falling asleep again,” Boye Rasmussen says.

Instead, the officer managed to wake a chief officer who managed to turn the ship minutes before it would have run aground.

“We have arrested the captain and have taken a blood sample,” Boye Rasmussen says, adding the captain will be charged with being intoxicated while in charge of a vessel.

The coaster, which normally carries scrap iron, was sailing without any cargo from Sweden to Lübeck in Germany

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