I read this and thought of you BB and wondered how you protect yourself in a boat in the middle of the ocean from these pirates. Watching Dead Calm was a bit scary too.
I was amazed that they will not charge them with murder unless a body is found
. Do they think he slit his own throat and them jumped or maybe it was an elaborate hoax to fake his death?
Fortunately, the Piracy issue is a bit of a Non-issue for cruising yachties, though I suspect it will increase a bit with the GFC.
Statistically, I reckon we'd have far greater chance of something horrible happening being land based in these regions or even here.
When I first read the article I thought "Thats it, its all turning to custard" but then reminded myself that murders and robberies happen often enough in Australia.
We lived in a street where there was a murder while we were there and break and enters as well, but we never contemplated moving from that area because of it.
I have spent a lot of time investigating and keeping track of incidents in these areas through these sites
Noonsite Yachting Piracy Reports
http://www.noonsite.com/General/Piracy
Yacht Piracy - Information Centre for Bluewater Sailors
http://www.yachtpiracy.org/en/dangerous_regions.htm
Onpassage.com :* Piracy and pirate attacks on yachts and sailboats
http://www.onpassage.com/Emergency_Medical/Pirate_attacks.htm
IMB Piracy Reporting Centre
http://www.icc-ccs.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=30&Itemid=12
now all nicely marked on my Google Earth placemarks and it mostly seems to be an opportunistic crime, though some boardings and robberies and bribes to leave have had an almost official feel to them, especially around Indonesia where yachts have been chased down and stopped by uniform wearing Automatic weapon wielding types demanding some "Fee" be paid, usually accompanied with cigarettes and alcohol.
Usually, No one gets hurt, but shots have been fired to encourage vessels to stop and the experience would be fairly freaky.
(When we do our run up through Indonesian waters we will travel in company on this rally
http://www.sailindonesia.net/home/home.php
You can see here that they have over 100 vessels not limited to sail that do the run
http://www.sailindonesia.net/history/history2008.php )
Funnily or sadly enough, this is not that different to QLD where we have vessels being boarded unannounced and "illegally" by Australian Customs and MSQ imposing fines.
More here about the crap yachties have to endure in QLD
http://www.thecoastalpassage.com/issues.html
What can we do to protect ourselves?
Not much more than these people did.
*Keep in touch with other yachties as to risky areas (which this was not one of)
*Lift dinghy up on deck or davits at night making it less of a target.
* Keep anything that may be used as a weapon (knives, winch handles, fish donger) out of the cockpit.
*Have bright security lights and alarm with motion sensors
*Have a Hi decibel horn and blinding light in the cockpit aimed aft that can be activated from below, hopefully disorienting thieves and attracting attention
* Secure and strong cockpit doors and hatches
*Boarding ladders up when not in use
It has been suggested at night that a spiked mat or thumbtacks be laid out in the cockpit boarding areas as sneak thieves will be barefoot.
There has also been investigation into electrifying S/S rails and lifelines
For boats being chased it has been suggested a well aimed rocket flare can create havoc, which I can guarantee they do, and that would work as long as they dont have well aimed AK47's or RPG's on board.
Having a throw away wallet with a small amount of local currency, old cancelled credit cards etc close at hand to give them has worked as has a stash of cheap ciggies and cheap alcohol. Sometimes this has been enough to send them away.
Anyway, the actual cases compared to transits have been fairly minor so I dont really think it is that much of an issue.
Dave
