Chen Tai-cheng and Lin Chung-li

The High Aim 6 was a Taiwanese long-liner. She was 20 metres long and 150 tons in weight. She was registered in Taiwan and fished under the Indonesian flag for her owner Tsai-huang Shueh-er. She docked in the port city of Tungkang.

High Aim 6 was designed for extended fishing voyages in open water. Her primary catch target was pelagic fish, particularly the highly valued tuna found to the north of Western Australia.

Captain Chen Tai-cheng and Engineer Lin Chung-li were experienced deep sea fishers. In fact, Captain Chen was a veteran, known for adherence to routine to maintain safe and productive operation of the boat.

The crew were eight Indonesian fishers, recruited through a licenced agency. They were experienced, from diverse backgrounds. For legal requirements of China and Indonesia, the crew manifest was written in Mandarin and Indonesian.

On 31 October 2002 High Aim 6 left Liuchiu in Taiwan for Indonesian water. She was well-fuelled and provisioned with a plan to fish for several months. She made port in Indonesia on 16 November where she took on two more crew and was fitted with freezers, processing equipment and cold storage. The vessel now had capacity to process her catch aboard, holding more saleable product.

High Aim 6 put out to sea and started fishing. The last contact with her was on 13 December when Captain Chen spoke to Tsai-huang Shueh-er. At that time the boat was catching well, and the boat was running well. Mr Shueh-er did not detect any concerns. At the time he was at the Marshall Islands. High Aim 6 was fishing off Papua New Guinea.

After 13 December, attempts to contact the boat, or any of her crew were unsuccessful. The owner and the families of the crew were concerned. In 2002 another Taiwanese fishing boat Hairisheng 6 was found by an Indonesian navy boat floating aimlessly without her crew.

The incident had sent a shock wave through authorities and the fishing industry when it was discovered that the captain and engineer had been murdered and three of her crew had been arrested.

Tsai Huang Sheh-er reported his boat and crew missing and a search was commenced from the location of the boat when he last had contact with her. There was only one further sighting. A local Indonesian fisher reported seeing High Aim 6 on 4 January 2003.

On 8 January High Aim 6 was found eighty nautical miles [150 kms] east of Rowley Shoals off the Kimberley coast. She was inside Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone. Her motor was still running, and she was underway on auto pilot steaming towards the Western Australian coast.

When the boat was boarded, she had a plenty of fuel and provisions. The crew’s personal possessions were aboard. The motor had stopped and the rudder had been locked. The High Aim 6 was a ghost ship. There was no sign of her crew. Food had been served but not eaten. The hold had tons of rotting fish.

A search for the missing crew was launched. An area of 7,300 nautical miles [13,500 kms] was covered by a united search team of Indonesian and Australian authorities and the United States coast guard.

High Aim 6 was towed to a quarantine bay off Broome. On 9 January the Australian Navy boarded her at sea for a forensic inspection. They found the boat in good condition with no evidence of violence or foul play.

The ghost ship story reverberated around the world. Newspapers and online news reports from as far away as Britain and the United States were finally able to release the discovery that High Aim’s life raft was missing – a clue that the crew might have left the boat voluntarily.

China’s Central News Agency in Taiwan reported another clue on 15 January when they revealed calls were made using the engineer’s mobile phone after 13 December 2002. The calls were traced to Bali, although it was unclear who was using the phone as it was not Lin Chung-li.

Lee An-duey, Director of the Liuchiou District Fishing Association counted 87 phone calls made to the engineer’s phone. The calls provided evidence that a mutiny was planned and executed by the ten Indonesians recruited to work on the boat. The plan included killing the captain and engineer and taking the boat back to Indonesia. Something had gone wrong because they had abandoned the boat and left in the lifeboat.

Indonesian police followed the evidence and eventually found a recruited crew member in the North Sulawesi. He informed police about for mutiny and the murder of the captain and engineer on 8 December 2002. Despite the evidence of the murders, no direct evidence aboard High Aim 6 had been found.

High Aim 6 was deemed abandoned by international law. She was handed to the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) for disposal. The boat was beached at Broome and became a popular tourist attraction over the next 12 months.

Local Broome residents suggested the hull be made into an artificial reef, a restaurant or an aquarium. The ideas were too expensive to be realised and the wooden frame and fibreglass hull limited other plans. In October 2004 High Aim 6 was broken apart and put into land fill. An undignified end for the fishing boat.

The enigma of the missing crew in WA waters remains unsolved. There has been no trace of the remains of the captain or the engineer killed in Western Australia waters. The maritime authorities of Indonesia, Marshall Islands, Australia, Southeast Asia and the United States worked with Interpol to solve the mystery, attempting to find who had used the engineer’s phone in Bali. To date the mystery remains unsolved.