The medium-tonnage trawler, the Ericaristine, was arrested in late August for poaching 400 metric tons of salmon for sale in South Korean ports. The schooner remained anchored at Russia's Kamchatka peninsula until it was taken away by storm Monday.
Russian rescuers said the rescue effort was complicated by the continuing storm in the Pacific and would resume Tuesday. They also said contact had been established with the crew, and there was no threat of leak or fuel spill.
Hsu Wen Ho, the captain of the trawler operated by the Taiwanese company P.T.Karya Bitunog Seajati, and Yury Pozdnyakov, a representative of a Cossack squadron of Russia's Sakhalin Island who concluded a bareboat charter agreement with the company have been under investigation since August. Both are suspected of violating Russian law on continental shelf and special economic zones.
