The Coast Guard announced this week that a derelict fishing vessel that was dislodged by the Tsunami spawned by the 9.0 earthquake in Japan last year is slowly drifting through the waters of Southeast Alaska at about one mile an hour.

The old shrimping vessel, the Ryou-Un Maru is reported to be approximately 164 miles from Baranof Island in Southeast Alaska. It entered U.S. waters on March 31st of this year. The vessel is unlit and unmanned and has drifted into high traffic shipping lanes and has become a hazard to vessels plying the waters of the North Pacific Coast.

Petty Officer 1st Class David Mosley said today to the Alaska Native News that the vessel is travelling parallel to the coast heading north-northwest and is in no danger of making landfall. If the situation changes to where the vessel does approach land, measures will be implemented to make sure that doesn’t happen according to Mosley.

He also mentioned that a cutter has not been deployed, but that a deployment is in the offing very soon. Mosley said that two locator bouys have been deployed near the vessel and that daily flights are taking place with another flight due out today with a cameraman to capture high resolution images of the vessel.