Shiver me timbers

The whereabouts of a cargo ship is unknown amid fears that it travelled through the English Channel under the control of pirates.

An international maritime search has been launched for the Maltese-flagged Arctic Sea and its 15-strong Russian crew whose last known contact was with Dover Coastguard as it prepared to enter the Channel.

Contact was lost with the ship as it was about to enter the Strait of Dover from the North Sea at 1.52pm on July 28.

There are concerns that crew members on board the 3,988-tonne ship, carrying about £1 million of sawn timber from Finland to Algeria, may have been coerced by hijackers when contact was made with the coastguards.