Of the ships bearing foreign flags anchoring for many years in Vietnam, Cambodian Jupiter 5-star cruise ship is the best known. The owner of the ship is Royal Group, a very famous company in the entertainment, tourism real estate and maritime tourism, with branches in Australia, Hong Kong, Macau and Cambodia.

When Jupiter arrived in Vietnam some years ago, it was advertised by the ship owner as having nine stories, capable to contain 1,000 passengers, and other facilities including conference room, restaurant, bar, karaoke, shopping center and amusement area.

The ship owner planned to use the five star ship to exploit the Phu Quoc island (Vietnam) – Shihanouk Ville (Cambodia) tourism route. It was expected that the ship would be put into operation prior to the 2008 Christmas.

In early November 2008, Royal Group gave the ship an experiment run to define the schedules, frequency, ticket fee, business plans and design services.

However, the luxurious ship, for some reasons, has “drifted” to the Van Ninh territorial waters in Khanh Hoa province since June 2010 and it has been lying as a protest there despite the disagreement by local authorities.

According to Pham Van Chuong, Deputy Director of the Nha Trang City Maritimes Authorities, the ship’s registration documents got invalid in December 2012 already. The navigation equipments on the ship still can work, but there has been no maintenance certificate since 2008.

The same situation was reported for firefighting and lifesaving equipment. The four main engines of the ships do not work.

Also according to Chuong, though Jupiter’s owner promised to remove the ship in 2013, it is highly possible that the promise would be broken.

In late August 2013, the ship owner sent a dispatch asking for the permission to leave the ship in Khanh Hoa until the end of March 2014.

“The weather is changeable, which makes it difficult to arrange long-time anchoring of ships, including Jupiter,” Chuong said. “Meanwhile, the ship owner has financial problems and cannot maintain the conditions to ensure the maritime safety and environment protection.”