WITH stowaways in the news this week, following the oil tanker Nave Andromeda incident off the Isle of Wight, we spoke to an Isle of Wight woman who has first hand experience in dealing with them.

Sam Belfitt, a deck officer, has worked around the world, including on the Island with Hovertravel and Wightlink.

In 2017 she was working on a vessel and was among just seven crew, out at sea, when they discovered six stowaways in a large cupboard on board.

They were a long way off the coast of Spain, having left port two days previously, and had no idea how the men had got on to the boat, or exactly where they had been hiding.

She explained: "It was quite a small ship and they were hidden in a storage area. Someone opened the door to the storage cupboard and there were six stowaways just sitting there.

"It was where we kept all the mooring ropes and we had been in and out of there, so we were never sure where they had been hiding.

Read more: Explainer: What happened on the Nave Andromeda

"They were OK towards us, but it turned out they were on the wrong boat, as they wanted to get to the Netherlands, but we weren't even going there.

"Unbeknown to them, instead of carrying on our journey and having them on board for longer, we turned round and headed back to the port we had come from.

"But it still meant we had them with us for another two days, until we could hand them over to the authorities on arrival at the port.

"Crew are obliged to look after stowaways and cannot deny them their human rights, and the normal thing is to provide them with a cabin but we didn't have a spare on a ship of that size.

"We ended up shutting the door on the cupboard and keeping them in there, as it was quite a large area. It was an unconventional decision but we didn't have anywhere to put them.

"So down through a hatch we provided blankets, food and something to use as a toilet, and I think some cigarettes too.

"We checked on them every half an hour, and we didn't really sleep for those two days, because we were so worried — there was almost as many of them as there was of us.

"They were six big men, and most of us weren't very big people.

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"There was big relief when the police came and got them off the ship, but the stowaways swore and made rude gestures at us when they saw they were back at the same port they had started out in and they realised what we had done.

"Hearing about the rescue on the Nave Andromeda, you can totally understand the fear of those on board, because you are waiting for the stowaways to turn nasty at any moment.

"You are on edge, always thinking 'what happens if'.

"I saw some comments on social media about it not being a big deal about the stowaways on Nave Andromeda and it really annoyed me. Armchair experts just haven't got a clue."