PIRACY ARTICLE

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I am cozily ensconced in the saloon of our 11 metre Catamaran " Gone Troppo ", listening to the wind whistle through the rigging and reflecting on the adventures that my husband, Stephen, and I have experienced since we leftAustralia on our world circumnavigation.  I wonder if we would ever have left if we knew what was ahead of us. Since June 1999, we had been making our way from Australia to the Mediterranean Sea via the Indian Ocean.  We had stopped for a month in India before commencing a sail across the Arabian Sea to Aden in January 2000. The sailing conditions were as close to idyllic as we had ever experienced and we had the opportunity to do some minor maintenance while under way. Our days developed into a comfortable routine during the day of making bread, doing a little work on the boat and eating, whilst at night we stood watch for 3 hours on and 3 hours off.

We had a few close encounters with whales and were entertained by dolphins on a number of occasions. Each morning we had a schedule on the HF radio with other yachts in the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea.  As a precaution against pirate attacks we did not give our position on the radio or state our destination. Some months before we had met the family onboard the yacht  "Aphrodite" when they were in Chagos and we were shocked when we heard of their pirate attack three months before in the Gulf of Aden.  The news of the subsequent arrest of these pirates was greeted with relief but we were still very cautious. Our course took us close to the middle of the Gulf of Aden and except for an aircraft, which flew up behind us and then banked away when it reached our position, we had not seen any vessels for two weeks and more importantly they had not seen us. The wind conditions were a light, 8-10 knots, which would normally be considered ideal for cruising.  On the day of the attack, we started out with the morning radio schedule and then as I kneaded a loaf of bread and set it by the stove to rise Stephen kept watch.  He spotted a small boat on the horizon ahead of us heading straight for us.  Immediately, we knew that we were in trouble and, hoping against hope we decided to try to out-run the boat. Changing course and starting the motors increased our speed from 3 to about 8 knots but the boat quickly closed on our position.  I started mayday calls on the HF and VHF while Stephen kept an eye on the boat.

  As they reached the side of the boat they opened fire and one bullet hit the boat, passing through the hulls and hitting me in the leg (although at the time I thought that I had only been hit by a piece of timber from the cupboard door which burst into small pieces as the bullet passed through it). A second burst shortly after the first splintered the gunnel as Stephen emerged from below deck into the cockpit waving at the pirates in surrender.  They motioned to us to stop and drop the sails.  Stephen stopped the motors and went forward to lower the sails and I went above deck to assist.  It took what seemed an inordinate amount of time before the sails were down. The whole time the pirates were pointing their guns and shouting at us to hurry up.  By the time the sails were down the pirates were alongside Gone Troppo and 4 of the 5 pirates boarded.  They waved us up forward and we sat on the trampoline.  One of the younger pirates looked very nervous, and appeared to be summoning up the courage to shoot us.  As his finger tightened on the trigger an older man saw what was about to happen and took the gun – an AK47 - from the lad and went and sat at the stern with the gun on his lap. Stephen held me tightly as I reflected on my life and thinking that there were worse ways to die. I found myself hoping that if they did shoot us that they didn't make a mess of it.  A dozen ideas passed through my mind as I tried to think of ways to improve our situation but we were completely at their mercy and they could do exactly what they wished and there was nothing we could do about it. The older man appeared to be in charge and after the boarding party had started  ransacking the boat he asked for money and alcohol.  Stephen went to find his wallet and while doing that helped them to remove the HF radio, antenna and solar panels- thus minimizing damage to the surrounds.  As time passed and they helped themselves to all manner of equipment and personal affects, they became increasingly nervous and kept scanning the horizon for vessels.  They loaded their booty onto their boat and took off at great speed. 

Stephen had noticed water on the floor of the port hull and our thoughts were that the boat had been holed below the water line and that we were taking on water, but the water didn't seem to be getting deeper, so, after a bit of searching we found that one bullet had sliced through a water line from the water header tank and 20 litres of water had emptied on to the floor. So, the boat wasn't sinking and we were alive !!  These seemed to be two pretty big pluses at this stage.

Apart from a quick glance at my tracksuit pants while I was on the trampoline to check if there was any blood showing I hadn't had a chance to have a look at my leg and I hadn't said anything to Stephen about the injury.  I hadn't wanted to worry him and I certainly didn't want to panic the pirates any more than they already appeared to be.  As I removed my pants a bullet dropped out of the bottom.  Luckily, I had only been punched by the bullet and only had small tears in my flesh.  It was pretty sore but it wasn't bleeding very much and I could still move the leg.   With the pirates now nearly out of sight we hoisted the sails and started the motors again.  We tried calling on the VHF radio to alert the authorities to our plight but we had no success.

We did a bit of a stock take.  We were about 200 miles from Aden or about 1 1/2 days of sailing in light winds, we are pretty shaken up, my leg was sore and stiff, the boat was a bit lighter and had a bit more ventilation than the original design. We temporarily plugged the holes up with blue tack and settled back into the task of sailing to Aden. Just on sunset that night we saw a yacht traveling in the opposite direction bound for the Seychelles. They offered to send a message via their Satcom C facility to the authorities in Djibouti and also to their shipping agent in Aden. They said that they would confirm that the message had been sent if we were still within radio range.  Later that night we also spoke to a ship that undertook to advise the Aden authorities. We thought that the authorities in Aden had been alerted and that they would be starting a search for the pirates. We continued sailing to Aden.

Facts on Piracy Attack

Date                 27 January 2000

Time                 0730 UTC  (11.00am local time)

Position            13 degrees 03' N

                        48 degrees 41' E

                        Gulf of Aden

                        About 60 Nm south of the Yemen coast

                        About 100 Nm north of the Somalian coast  

No of Pirates    5

Nationality of

Pirates              Unknown

Description of

Pirates boat      8 –9 metres long painted blue

                        No super structure or deck

                        Inboard motor

                        Bare timber gunwale with branches fixed vertically (possibly to support

                        a sunshade)

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