Four Chinese fishermen caught on a boat gone mad with mutiny dropped a home-made raft in the Pacific 1600 kilometres from Japan. To their horror, the currents swept them back alongside the hull of the Lurongyu 2682 and the waiting mutineers.

All four jumped into the sea rather than accept a horrible fate. Three disappeared, never to be seen again, but Song Guochun was pulled back aboard.

On deck, the ringleaders told two men who had yet to kill anyone to tie Song up, weight him down and ditch him. They did so, ensuring every man left on board had blood on his hands in a murderous spree in which 22 of 33 sailors died.

The trial this northern summer of the 11 survivors in the east Chinese port of Weihai raised questions about the kinds of seamen hired by fishing vessels, the labour agencies that recruit them and the grinding poverty that forces many Chinese to work in such conditions.

Zhang Yuelin told her husband, Wang Yongbo, 49, to turn down the two-year voyage to the South American coast.