If a derelict ghost ship is still bobbing around the North Atlantic and if it has rats on board, they’re Canadian rats.

Speculation that the 38-year-old cruise ship MV Lyubov Orlova, which snapped a Canadian Coast Guard tow line a year ago in the North Atlantic, is bearing down on a British or Irish coast has captured the imagination of headline writers.

“Ghost ship crewed only by CANNIBAL rats feared to be heading for Scottish coast,” warned the Scottish Daily Record.

“Ghost ship full of cannibal rats could be about to crash into Devon coast,” the Plymouth Herald localized.

Hedging its bets, ThisisCornwall.com declared, “Ghost ship full of diseased cannibal rats could crash into coast of Devon OR Cornwall.”

“The ship has sunk,” a spokesman for the Irish Coast Guard told the Star.

While admitting there is no 100 per cent proof — “You can’t prove a negative” — he said that two distress signals from the emergency position-indicating radio beacon are strong evidence. They only sound when immersed in water.

He also discounted stories that the Irish Coast Guard was critical of its Canadian counterparts for letting the empty ship go while it was being towed.

“It broke away. We weren’t ever critical of them.”

Nevertheless, the spokesman was happy to explain where the headlines came from.

“It’s a good exaggeration. It was berthed in Canada for over a year and there were reports while it was in Canada that it was infested by rats.”

Canadian rats.

“There is an urban myth that when a ship is headed east and has rats on board, they eat themselves.”

Canadian cannibal rats.

The Lyubov Orlova, named for the first star of Soviet cinema and built in 1976 in what was then Yugoslavia, had been operating as an Arctic and Antarctic cruise ship when it was abandoned in 2010 in St. John’s, Newfoundland, with unpaid debts and an unpaid crew.

Sold to a shipping company in 2012, it was being towed to the Dominican Republic exactly one year ago when it broke away twice. The second time, they let it go.

“The Lyubov Orlova no longer poses a threat to the safety of offshore oil installations, their personnel or the marine environment. The vessel has drifted into international waters,” the Canadian Coast Guard said in a statement.

The 4,250-tonne ship is, however, worth money as scrap metal, the Irish Coast Guard spokesman said. Hence the enthusiasm of a Belgium salvage hunter, Pim de Rhoodes, who told the British tabloid The Sun that he’s hopeful.

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The last signal from the EPIRB, which would have been on lifeboats that could have broken off, was 700 nautical miles off the Irish coast last March.

“There have been two big storms since then,” the Irish Coast Guard spokesman said. “There’s been no sighting of it.”

Or of the Canadian rats leaving a sinking ship.