A dilapidated cargo ship which turned up off the coast of Myanmar seemingly abandoned by its crew baffled authorities for several days.

Fishermen found the empty cargo vessel, named 'Sam Ratulangi PB 1600',floating some 6.5miles from land in the Gulf of Martaban, last week with no crew on board.

Data showed that its last logged journey was undertaken in June 2009.

A ghost ship bearing an Indonesian flag mysteriously reappeared off the coast of Myanmar

Myanmar Navy personnel found no crew members or goods on board the ship

However Myanmar authorities soon discovered that the ship had been on its way from Jakarta, Indonesia, to a ship-breaking factory in Bangladesh, and bad weather had forced the crew on the tug-boat to abandon it at sea.

Navy personnel found no crew members or goods on board the ship after an initial inspection last week.

However, cut cables at the head of the ship indicated that it had been towed by a tugboat.

Navy authorities have since located the tugboat that it was tied to, sailing 80 kilometres off Yangon city with 13 Indonesian crew members on board.

The Sam Ratulangi PB 1600 was a cargo vessel with a dead weight of 26,500 tonnes

The Myanmar Navy discovered that the cargo vessel had been moored to another ship after finding two cables at its head

The crewmembers told Navy authorities it had left Jakarta on August 13, before the weather forced them to cut off the cables due to bad weather on August 26.

The 'Sam Ratulangi PB 1600', which has a dead weight 26,500 tonnes, had then been carried away by the current, according to Eleven Myanmar.

It is not known why the tug-boat had not made an attempt to collect the vessel.

Investigations are ongoing.