Bulgaria’s Varna Radio navigational-warning broadcast, now carried on the official VTMIS weather-and-warning page on Thursday late morning, prints NAVWARN 768/26 as the working wreck-and-cargo instrument on Contship Jet southeast of Cape Kaliakra. The working primary is: NAVWARN 768/26 BLACK SEA. BULGARIA. SE OF KALIAKRA CAPE. AT 282030 UTC OCT 26 M/V CONTSHIP JET IMO 9348625 SUNK IN POSITION 43-07.80N 028-45.36E. OVER 20 CONTAINERS FROM VESSEL ADRIFT IN AREA. LOST CARGO INCLUDES FLAMMABLE GASES, NON-FLAMMABLE NON-TOXIC GASES, FLAMMABLE LIQUIDS AND OTHER DANGEROUS GOODS. WRECK AND DRIFTING CONTAINERS POSE IMMEDIATE NAVIGATIONAL DANGER. EXTREME CAUTION ADVISED. That is the product. It names the hull, it names the IMO number, it names a sinking time, it names a new plot, it names more than 20 containers still adrift with a dangerous-goods class list, and it upgrades the mariner instruction from caution to extreme caution. It does not print a keep-clear radius, a wreck buoy, a least depth, a pollution volume, a salvage contract, or a port closure.
Thursday morning’s dedicated NAVWARN 759/26 piece on this desk, published about 03:38 UTC, recorded the surface-drone hit and the crew abandoning at 43-15N 028-48E, with 761/26 as the working container watch at 43-15.2N 028-48.5E, and told operators to watch a later NAVWARN that marks a wreck, a keep-clear, a pollution line or a salvage. 768/26 is that later instrument. It is not a second drone attack. It is not a rewrite of Thursday morning’s companion 766/26 Khoryv keep-clear east of Shabla. Masters who brief Thursday afternoon as a second Contship strike, as a completed container recovery, as a Varna or Constanta harbour shutdown, or as Warning 185-26 will have merged a named sinking into three other series.
What the warning actually printed
The hydrographic text is short and is the working primary. NAVWARN 768/26. Black Sea. Bulgaria. Southeast of Kaliakra Cape. Date-time group 282030 UTC 28 October 2026 — the board’s “OCT 26” is the two-digit year on a 28 October clock, the same convention as the rest of the Varna Radio tape, not a 2025 leftover. Hull M/V CONTSHIP JET. IMO 9348625. Sunk in 43-07.80N 028-45.36E. Over 20 containers from the vessel adrift in the area. Lost cargo includes flammable gases, non-flammable non-toxic gases, flammable liquids and other dangerous goods. Wreck and drifting containers pose immediate navigational danger. Extreme caution advised. Stay with that wording. Do not invent a five-cable or one-nautical-mile circle around 43-07.80N 028-45.36E. 768/26 does not print one. Do not invent a wreck buoy, a light, a least depth, or a shoreline-pollution confirmation. The notice does not print those either.
The plot move is the first briefing fact. 759/26 put the surface-drone hit at 43-15N 028-48E, 281000 UTC. 761/26 put more than 20 dangerous-goods containers at 43-15.2N 028-48.5E from 1200 UTC. 768/26 puts the sunk hull at 43-07.80N 028-45.36E at 2030 UTC, on the order of seven and a half nautical miles south-southwest of the hit. That is a new working wreck position in the same south-east Kaliakra approaches, not a second ship. 768/26 does not reprint the 43-15.2N 028-48.5E container coordinate. The cargo line is now “adrift in area” of the wreck. Do not brief two container fields. Do not keep 759/26 and 761/26 as the working cautions. Neither number appears on the Thursday late-morning VTMIS in-force board. 768/26 has replaced them.
The clock is the second briefing fact. 759/26 is 1000 UTC 28 October, crew abandoning. The Ministry of Transport and Communications wrap on that dedicated morning piece put the distress signal at 12:01 local from MRCC Constanta, the crew leaving at 12:13 local, and the 18 saved and directed to Varna. 768/26 is 2030 UTC the same day — about ten and a half hours after the hit, and after the 18 were already ashore. The sinking print does not reopen the SAR on the 18. It also does not cancel the wreck. A DPA who briefs Thursday afternoon as “crew saved, so the caution is over” has treated a ministry SAR-complete line as a hydrographic cancel. A DPA who briefs Thursday afternoon as a second attack at 2030 UTC has invented a second weapon clock that 768/26 does not print. The 2030 UTC group is a wreck-and-cargo status, not a new hit.
The cargo line is the third briefing fact. 761/26 already listed flammable gases, non-toxic non-flammable gases, flammable liquids and other dangerous goods. 768/26 reprints the same classes with the word order swapped to non-flammable non-toxic gases, still “over 20 containers,” still adrift, now tied to a sunk hull rather than to a hit plot. Containers of that class remain low in the water, radar-poor, and a contact hazard in darkness and in a seaway. Same-board weather, not a NAVWARN fact, is a near-gale warning on the 29 October 0410 UTC and 0630 UTC Varna Radio bulletins, with Kaliakra reporting visibility 2 miles at 0600 UTC and sea 3 to 4. That is the envelope in which an unlit box field sits. It is not a container count and not a recovery complete.
The official ministry and Navy wrap, not a second hydrographic primary, remains the 28 October SAR file already carried on this morning’s 759/26 piece: 18-member crew saved; Liberia flag; about 17 nautical miles east of Cape Kaliakra on the ministry offset; Haifa to Constanta; 421 containers per the crew. The Bulgarian Navy statement of the same day adds that the hit was observed by the Navy surveillance system and by a French maritime-patrol aircraft, that three hits were observed, and that three Navy ships were sent after the first hit. Those extras were held as colour on the morning piece and stay colour here. 768/26 does not reprint the 18, the 421, the three-hit count, or the French aircraft. It reprints a sunk hull and a dangerous-goods field. Hold the 18-saved clocks as closed SAR. Hold 768/26 as the open wreck.
What this is not
This is not a rewrite of M/V Khoryv. Thursday morning’s dedicated NAVWARN 766/26 remains the working Bulgarian five-cable keep-clear on that hull east of Shabla: 43-30.60N 028-43.69E, IMO 8138712, capsized, semi-submerged, drifting, without crew and lights. 766/26 is still on the same VTMIS board, immediately under 768/26. Friday’s dedicated Romanian Naval Authority file remains the Khoryv casualty and search piece. Tuesday’s dedicated ARN 158/2026 remains the last Romanian wreck-move and is no longer the working keep-clear. Contship Jet is a different ship, a different IMO, a different weapon class on the original hit notice, and a different plot. 768/26 prints IMO 9348625. 766/26 prints IMO 8138712. The wrecks sit on the order of 23 nautical miles apart. Do not collapse them. Do not apply Khoryv’s five-cable circle to Contship Jet. 768/26 still prints no radius.
This is not Warning 185-26, and it is not a Hormuz product. 185-26 is this afternoon’s companion UKMTO Suspicious Activity fire 9 nautical miles north of Khasab. It does not name Contship Jet. NAVAREA IX still ends at 416/26 on the Pakistan Thursday table. This is not Update 109. Update 108, JMIC# 001 26, ICOD 251300 UTC 25 October, remains the last numbered public periodic note. This is not an International Maritime Organization 122-count. The highlighted-incidents board is still 121 confirmed / 24 seafarer fatalities as at 27 October, with Leonora Kosan still the newest named Middle East row. Contship Jet does not belong on that table.
This is not a second drone attack, a completed salvage, or a Varna, Burgas, Constanta, Midia, Mangalia or Sulina closure. 768/26 advises extreme caution. It does not prohibit entry. Same-board NAVWARN 752/26 still warns of a Navy underwater survey inside seven cables of 43-15.86N 028-27.56E until 1000 UTC 30 October; that box sits well west of the wreck and is not this hull. NAVWARN 754/26 is a Varna Bay diving box until 1110 UTC 29 October. NAVWARN 757/26 is a Varna Lake regatta prohibition on 30–31 October and 1 November. Do not merge a harbour-training circle or a lake regatta into a Kaliakra wreck. 768/26 is a wreck-and-drifting-dangerous-goods watch. It is not a shoreline-pollution confirmation and not a completed container recovery.
This is not Wine Trader at 45-00.40N 029-59.92E, not HS Dignity, not Chelsea 3, not MApN 213, not the EP 432-52-88 / CSAT vote, and not Tuesday’s NATO extra-MPA note. Open-register colour only, unchanged from this morning: IMO 9348625, Liberia, container ship, built 2007, about 160 metres, 14,016 gt, on the order of 18,100 dwt, about 1,267 TEU, ISM manager Contships Management Inc. None of that listing colour sits on 768/26. Do not promote it to a NAVWARN fact.
Operational implications
For a master shaping Constanta, Midia, Mangalia, Varna or Burgas this afternoon, Wednesday’s two plots have become one wreck plot and an unlocated box field. 768/26 puts a sunk containership at 43-07.80N 028-45.36E, still in the south-east Kaliakra approaches, on the order of seven and a half nautical miles south-southwest of the 759/26 hit and still east of the cape. Over 20 containers, including flammable gases, non-flammable non-toxic gases, flammable liquids and other dangerous goods, are adrift in that area. The NAVWARN still prints no radius. The working instruction is extreme caution, a lookout for the wreck and for boxes, and no assumption that the 18-saved ministry line, or the disappearance of 759/26 and 761/26 from the in-force board, cancelled the cargo. A passage plan that only carried this morning’s 43-15N 028-48E hit, or that treated the Bulgarian coast as a Khoryv-only problem because 766/26 is the five-cable circle, has not budgeted a sunk feeder and a dangerous-goods field seven miles farther south.
For a DPA and an operator with feeders or general cargo on Haifa–Constanta, Piraeus–Varna or any west-Black-Sea rotation this week, the reporting split is the operational content. Further sightings of the wreck, of containers, of pollution or of persons in the water belong with the coastal-state MRCC and with the company security officer, not with UKMTO 185-26. 768/26 does not order an armed team, a daylight-only transit, or a deviation around a published circle. It also does not authorise a master to treat the three-drone agency line, the French-aircraft colour, or the 421-container ministry figure as NAVWARN facts. Log the warning number, the 282030 UTC clock, the IMO, the 43-07.80N 028-45.36E wreck, the over-20-container class list, and the fact that 759/26 and 761/26 are no longer the working instruments. Do not log a harbour closure, a wreck buoy, or a completed recovery that the notice does not print.
For charterers and P&I, Thursday afternoon is a named Black Sea containership sinking with an open dangerous-goods cargo watch, not a Hormuz fixture problem and not a Khoryv rewrite. Off-hire, deviation, wreck-removal and general-average conversations will now ask whether the ship was in the south-east Kaliakra approaches after 2030 UTC 28 October, whether it logged the new wreck plot, and whether the 421-container / 18-crew ministry figures were in the master’s pack. They will not be answered by 185-26, by 016-26, or by Tuesday’s 121-count. The Haifa origin remains a commercial fact on the ministry statement; it is not a finding that the original hit, or the sinking, was directed at that load. Do not convert a wreck NAVWARN into an attribution that 768/26 does not print.
The near-gale and two-mile Kaliakra visibility on Thursday’s Varna Radio weather tape are the seaway in which this wreck sits, not a second primary. Boxes already low in the water become harder to see as sea state rises and visibility drops. That is an operational reason to treat “extreme caution” as a lookout and speed problem on the Constanta track, not a reason to invent a numeric keep-clear that 768/26 still withholds. Watch a later NAVWARN that marks a wreck buoy, a least depth, a radius, a pollution line or a salvage; a later ministry or flag note that moves the 18 or the 421; or a container-recovery notice. Do not brief Thursday as a completed hull recovery because the ship is now printed as sunk.
Keep the dedicated files on their own lines. 759/26 remains this morning’s dedicated surface-drone-hit piece and is no longer the working caution. 761/26 remains this morning’s wrap on that hit and is no longer the working cargo watch. 766/26 remains this morning’s dedicated Khoryv five-cable keep-clear and is still in force. Friday’s ANR Khoryv naming remains the casualty/search piece. Wine Trader remains the dedicated Sulina fire. 184-26 remains Wednesday night’s Gulf of Aden Advisory. 185-26 is this afternoon’s companion Khasab fire. Update 108 remains the last periodic Middle East threat note. 016-26 remains Wednesday afternoon’s blockade document pack. Do not recast 29 October afternoon as a second Contship attack, as an IMO 122-count, as a Varna closure, as Warning 185-26, or as a completed salvage.
What Operators Should Note
- Log 768/26 as the working wreck, not as a second drone hit. NAVWARN 768/26, 282030 UTC 28 October. Black Sea, Bulgaria, southeast of Kaliakra Cape. M/V CONTSHIP JET, IMO 9348625, sunk in 43-07.80N 028-45.36E. Over 20 containers adrift in the area, including flammable gases, non-flammable non-toxic gases, flammable liquids and other dangerous goods. Wreck and drifting containers pose immediate navigational danger. Extreme caution advised. No radius, no wreck buoy, no least depth, no pollution volume, no port closure on this notice. This is not 766/26, not ARN 158/2026, not 185-26, and not a second attack clock.
- Retire 759/26 and 761/26 as the working cautions. This morning’s dedicated 759/26 hit at 43-15N 028-48E, 281000 UTC, and the 761/26 container watch at 43-15.2N 028-48.5E, 1200 UTC, no longer appear on the Thursday late-morning VTMIS in-force board. 768/26 has replaced them. The wreck sits on the order of seven and a half nautical miles south-southwest of the hit. 768/26 does not reprint the old container lat/long. Do not brief two container fields. Keep 759/26 as the dedicated hit file, not as the live instrument.
- Hold the ministry 18-saved clocks as closed SAR, not as a wreck cancel. MTC 28 October remains wrap: signal 12:01 local from MRCC Constanta; Liberia flag; about 17 nautical miles east of Cape Kaliakra; Haifa to Constanta; 421 containers per the crew; crew left at 12:13 local; 18 saved and directed to Varna. 2030 UTC is about ten and a half hours after the hit. The 18 were already ashore. That does not cancel 768/26. Navy three-hit / French-MPA colour stays colour. Do not promote it to this NAVWARN.
- Do not merge this hull onto Khoryv, Wine Trader or Hormuz. 766/26 remains in force on the same board: Khoryv, IMO 8138712, 43-30.60N 028-43.69E, five-cable keep-clear. Do not apply that radius to Contship Jet. Wine Trader remains the dedicated Sulina fire. 185-26 is a Khasab Suspicious Activity fire, not this wreck. Update 108 remains last periodic note. IMO still 121 / 24 as at 27 October. 016-26 remains the blockade document pack. 752/26 is a separate Kaliakra survey box until 1000 UTC 30 October, not this ship.
- Brief extreme caution on the Constanta and Varna approaches, not a harbour shutdown. 768/26 advises extreme caution. It does not close Varna, Burgas, Constanta, Midia, Mangalia or Sulina. Same-board near-gale weather and Kaliakra visibility 2 miles at 0600 UTC are the seaway for an unlit box field, not a second primary. Watch a later NAVWARN that marks a wreck buoy, a keep-clear radius, a least depth, a pollution line or a salvage; a later ministry note that moves the 18 or the 421; or a flag/class statement. Do not brief Thursday as a completed hull or cargo recovery.
- Open-register colour only. IMO 9348625, Liberia, 2007, about 160 m, 14,016 gt, Contships Management. AP / Stoyanov three maritime drones, the 14-Filipino and four-Ukrainian split, and Proteo / Reshitelni naming remain colour from this morning’s hit file. None of that sits on 768/26.
Regulas Shipping will keep lining NAVWARN 768/26 against this morning’s 759/26 hit so operators can treat Thursday’s product as a named Kaliakra wreck with a dangerous-goods container watch, not as a second attack, a Khoryv rewrite, a harbour closure, or a completed salvage.
