At dusk on Monday, the fisheries surveillance ship HP 926 docked at the Da Nang Port for repair after its 26-hour sea journey from the Hoang Sa waters.  Earlier, the ship had been aggressively rammed by some Chinese ships in Viet Nam’s territorial waters.

The second-in-command of the HP 926, Mr Nguyen Buoi, said that at about 9 am on 23 May, his ship was chased by a Chinese tugboat.  At that time, the HP 926, along with other Vietnamese coastguard and fisheries surveillance ships, were approaching near to the drilling rig.  At a distance of 30m from the Vietnamese ship, the Chinese tugboat, also called “flying saucer”, aggressively sailed at high speed and repeatedly fired high-pressure water cannons into the Vietnamese ship.  The captain of the Vietnamese ship steered the ship to avoid continuous attacks by the Chinese boat.  However, the tugboat continued its aggressive actions, causing serious damage to the port of the Vietnamese ship.  The ship’s piping system was broken whilst the left propellers were totally deformed.  Fortunately, there were no human injuries.