Sixteen Cuban crewmen were stranded Thursday in a backwater African port, with little cash and owed up to 11 months of salary, after their cargo ship began listing with a possibly illegal lumber cargo aboard.

The Cubans and six other crewmen from the Maldives Island reportedly abandoned the ship Medea K after it began taking on water in Mayumba, a sandy spit with a pier in southern Gabon in west-central Africa.

Esteban Casañas, a former Cuban merchant marine captain who defected 18 years ago and now lives in Toronto, said it's not unusual for Cuban crews to become stuck in ports around the world.

Cuban government agencies charge cut-rate prices to hire out crews for usually old ships prone to breakdowns, Casañas said. And when they break down, the agencies and shipowners don't rush to help the crews.

``Cuba is selling cheap labor to people who have no scruples, so Cuban crews have been stuck all over the world,'' said Casañas, who first reported the Medea case Tuesday on Faro de Recalada, a Cuban naval forum on the Web.

Casañas and Spain's EFE news agency reported the problems began Oct. 19, when the 31-year old, 466-foot Medea K, registered in Panama, began taking on water as it loaded a cargo of lumber in Mayumba. The ship is now listing heavily to its left.

Capt. Luis Arozarena told EFE in a telephone interview that his crew abandoned ship three days later and that the Medea now has 10 feet of water in the engine room, leaving it without the power needed to pump out the water.

The 22 crewmen took the ship's food stocks and have been staying in Mayumba but had only $1,200 in cash between them, according to the reports. The Cuban crewmen also claimed they were owed from eight to 11 months of back salaries.

Casañas said he learned the details of the case from a former Cuban merchant marine who contacted him with a request to publicize the crew's plight and complained that the hiring agency in Havana was doing nothing to help. EFE identified the agency as Selecmar. By Wednesday night there was one report the agency had promised to send the crew some help, but it was not clear how long it would take to reach them.

EFE identified the shipowner as Elefterios Kabadia and his company as Hecate Shipping in Greece. The man who contacted Casañas identified the owner as Medea Shipping. El Nuevo Herald efforts to locate them and Selecmar proved unsuccessful.

The Medea K's cargo consisted of ``precious woods'' loaded in Mayumba and bound for China, which may signal some illegal logging, said one shipping expert who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitive nature of the issue.

Mayumba lies within the Mayumba National Park, part of a 13,290 square mile region that extends into neighboring Congo and is known as the Gamba-Mayumba-Conkouati Landscape. The Landscape's Web page says that thanks to the hiring and training of some 60 guards and eco-guides, ``illegal logging has stopped in all protected areas on the Gabon side of the Landscape.''

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