  Karte gross |
Piracy attempt to yacht enroute Panama-Galapagos
© Jimmy Cornell's Noonsite
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Date: February 21st 2005
With reference to last years reports, attack to japanese yacht in April and attempt to another yacht in August, I am qouting report received from David and Rosanne on the Australian yacht (Do not have name yet).This report was received by freinds of David and Rosanne in Panama and relayed to me. Trying to obtain name of yacht and position of incident, but as the report was received here in Panama February the 16th from Galapagos, it is a recent incident. It is felt that yachts proceeding from Panama to Galapagos, as well as other parties concerned, should be advised accordingly. On route to the Galapagos at around 4:00am on my watch things were going as usual. Our watch system had become more and more lax as we were not seeing any vessels and we were at great distance from any land. Something prompted me to get up and look around and I saw two lights of a ship on our Starboard side. I was very confused as the brightness indicated a very close proximity but I could not see the red or green navigation light that would indicate which side of the boat I was looking at. After a while I woke Rosanne up to get a second opinion. Over a period of about the next half hour the lights continued to get brighter and then I noticed a second set of lights on our port side getting brighter also. It was becoming obvious that it was not a container ship I was trying to identify but a number of small craft closing in on us from both sides. After another 20 minutes or so there appeared another boat coming towards us from another direction . At this point we were in the middle of a at least five boat coming in towards us. I tried radio contact but none of the vessels responded.From a safety perspective the situation was becoming more serious until I started to consider these vessels were trying to engage us. I immediately turned off our navigation lights to black out our boat. I noticed then the random direction the boats on our starboard side started to move. I started to head for the gaps to keep them as far away as possible. We managed to slip the net so to speak except for one boat the fastest and brightest of them all. She clearly had us on her radar and was pursuing us on an intercept coarse regardless of the direction we took. With our engine in full power we continued to keep her at a distance but she was getting closer by the minute and it was approaching sunrise. As the sun began to rise we could see the vessel clearly and now they could see us not only on Radar but with their own eyes. There vessel appeared to be about 1/4 to 1/2 a knot faster than us. We began to make preparations to be boarded. I asked Rosanne to make herself less attractive by covering herself up as much as possible and she got some money out which would be high on their priority list.When things were looking desperate. the wind picked up just a little. Enough to put out some sails which increased our speed by about 1/2 to 3/4 of a knot. Over the next hour we were able to put them over the horizon. I have since learned there was a piracy attack within 90 miles or so last April. |
