PIRACY

BCC Forum
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INTERNET HEAD: British Couple Held by Pirates Returns Home

MAIN: BRITAIN - SOMALIA - PIRACY

A British couple who were held by Somali pirates for more than a year have returned home.

Paul and Rachel Chandler arrived at London’s Heathrow airport Tuesday evening on a flight from Nairobi, Kenya.

The couple was freed on Sunday after 13 months of captivity, one of the most drawn-out hostage situations off the coast of East Africa. The couple appeared thin but in good health.

The two asked for privacy Monday after receiving the news that Paul Chandler’s father had died in July. The Chandlers said in a statement that they need some time to “come to terms” with the news.

The two were attacked by Somali pirates near the Seychelle islands, where they were sailing on a 38-foot-yacht.

REST OPT

Paul Chandler, who is 60 years old, and his 53-year-old wife had retired early and spent most of their savings to buy the yacht in order to sail around the world.

Over the past year, they lived in Somalia’s harsh heat, at times forcefully separated and, they say, beaten.

Somali pirates have made a fortune in the kidnapping trade, and typically only release hostages for multi-million-dollar ransoms.

Local elders said the pirates were paid about $750,000 to release the British couple, well below the initial ransom demand of $7 million. British media report the ransom was partially funded by donations from Somalis living in Britain.

Even with the Chandlers’ release, Somali pirates are still holding more than 20 ships and 500 hostages.

Mehmet (VOA News)
CERYAN

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Do you know just what it was that motivated the Chandler’s to be cruising where they were, even when they were ?

Word among cruisers in this area , is that you group-up with fellow cruisers to form a flotilla when in these troubled waters, for protection , ie : strength in numbers , is much better than going off on your own, so why did they do that , we hope they tell their story .

There are more attacks on private yachts around South East Asia , that don’t get publisied, or even reported.

There are areas we best avoid, if we want to avoid trouble .

We have the choice of where we go , must we tempt fate like the Chandler’s did ?

I really want to hear their side of the story .

What surprised me was that British Somali group helped as much as they did , in order to avoid “Bad Press” , for their homeland .

What my take is , that we can’t expect our governments to bail us out of trouble that we get ourselves into !

Hopefully there is a lesson to be learned from this, and that we all might benifit from it .

Douglas

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Thanks for the update, Mehmet.

I wrote a blog entry about the Chandlers’ kidnapping (and about piracy in general) about a year ago. It’s archived on my blog site, www.greatbluemarine.com/blog.html (look for it in the archive list at left – December 12, 2009).

Ellen
(new owner of BCC Jolie Brise)

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Ellen,
I’m able to access your blog OK, but when I click on any of your entries, nothing happens. Is this a problem on my end, or your end? I’m looking forward to another BCC blog!
Dan Shaula BCC 59

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Dan,
Not sure why this is happening. I’ve checked it using both Firefox and Safari, and it works for me. Anyone else having this problem?
Try going to www.greatbluemarine.com (homepage) and clicking into the sailing blog from there …??
Ellen
(new owner of BCC Jolie Brise)

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I use firefox and it works for me.

http://www.greatbluemarine.com/blog.html

IDUNA

On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 7:20 AM, BCC Forums bccforums@samlmorse.com wrote:

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I checked the encoding on the website, and the HTML does not comply with standards. Consequently it is faulty on all browsers, but the faults are different for each browser.

In Internet explorer the code falters at the first image where this coding is wrong:
<embed img src=“blog/Jolie_Brise_01.jpg” alt=“Jolie Brise with sun awnings” width=35% align=right valign=top hspace vspace=5

Change to <img src=“blog/Jolie_Brise_01.jpg” alt=“Jolie Brise with sun awnings” width=35% align=right valign=top hspace vspace=5

I think this relates to all images on the site.

It also fails because the content is not properly tabulated. In IE this causes a large empty margin on the left, in Firefox it causes the two small icons on the header to become enlarged and indistinct.

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Thanks, John. I know this is trending the thread off-topic! I am self-taught in HTML and obviously still have a lot to learn! After changing the image coding, I will be experimenting with tabulating the content properly, which may take me a while to figure out.
Ellen
(new owner of BCC Jolie Brise)

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It seems to run fine in Google Chrome but not IE.
David

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Hi Ellen,
I had no problem to log in to your site. Saw the bilge pictures, before and after and read the article about Dawson’s too.
I think an attack to a merchant marine ship can be called an act of privacy but a couple in a small and private boat being attacked is an acf of terrorism. It is a shame that in this date and age they can get away with it.
Meantime, I am not to far from you. Across the bay in Galesville. Sometime in new year we must come together and check out the boats…
To see which one is prettier

Cheers,

Mehmet
CERYAN

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This is the VOA story on four Americans killed by pirates… By the Somalian pirates…
Mehmet

(( Title: Pirates/Americans Killed))
HEAD:Somali Pirates Kill Four Americans Aboard Hijacked Yacht
DATE: 02/22/11 14:57:04.000
BYLINE: Meredith Buel
DATELINE: Washington, D.C.
NUMBER:603336
TYPE: CR ))

((INTRO)) The U.S. military says four Americans were killed by pirates Tuesday on board their hijacked yacht off the coast of Somalia. The military says that of the 19 pirates involved in the hijacking, four were killed and 15 were taken into custody. VOA Correspondent Meredith Buel reports from Washington.

((TEXT)) Vice Admiral Mark Fox, commander of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, says officials were involved in negotiations with the pirates who captured the yacht on Friday in the Indian Ocean.

He says the pirates fired a rocket propelled grenade at a U.S. Navy warship observing the yacht and gunfire could be heard shortly afterward on board the captured vessel.

Fox says a team of U.S. special operations forces then boarded the yacht, known as the SV Quest.

((FOX ACT))

“There were no gunshots fired from the boarding team as they boarded – none. And then as they were clearing the vessel, they did kill one pirate as they were clearing it, and there was another pirate that was killed in a knife fight.”

((END ACT))

Fox says the four Americans aboard the Quest had been shot before U.S. forces arrived on the ship. He says the troops provided medical treatment, but all four died of their wounds.

In addition to the two pirates killed by U.S. forces, Fox says the remains of two other pirates were found on board.

He says 15 pirates are being detained.

((FOX ACT))

“They are currently in our custody on board one of our ships, and we will go through the appropriate processes to ultimately bring them to a judicial process and hold them accountable for their activities.”

((END ACT))

Admiral Fox identified the four Americans killed as Scott and Jean Adam of California who owned the yacht, and Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle of Washington state.

Fox says the pirates appear to have been dispatched from a mother ship that ferried them out to sea and allowed them to capture the yacht.

Fox says that although dozens of warships from different countries are patrolling the sea off East Africa, the area is so vast it is difficult to prevent the piracy that is plaguing the region.

((FOX ACT))

“The pirates have been able to go for long distances out to sea – up to 1300, 1400 nautical miles away from Somalia – so there is pirate activity that has gone all the way up into the north Arabian Sea, off of the coast of India, down to Madagascar and so forth.”

((END ACT))

Somali pirates have made hundreds of millions of dollars hijacking ships for ransom.

The European Union’s anti-piracy task force says pirates are holding more than 30 vessels and nearly 700 hostages. ((SIGNED))

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Appalling.

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They be pirates. They be warnings. If you value your life and the lives of your crew why sail an area that all but has billboards advertizing that this is a dangerous place. I have learned that when I hit my finger with a hammer it hurts and so I don’t intentionally do it.The Danish family knew they could be hijacked and even had a plan. Well, that didn’t work and when you deal with a factor like this you are dealing with a trade that didn’t just start yesterday. Piracy is most likely the second oldest profession and these thugs are no beginners. I just have trouble wondering why people knowingly risk danger in known dangerous places. We can only hope and pray that harm will not come to anyone else and that something else can be done to rid the areas of these threats.
Bob & Lois
SV Starlight Hans Christian 33

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Hi Bob N Lois , Currently , my wife Lang and I are planing an alternative route .

We were planing to complete our Pacific Cruise , departing Singapore, bound for Philipines, Japan , then the Pac Nor West .

We do expect to be able to complete this route, back to the US , without too much piracy, to be concerned, about .

We are finding other South-East Asian sailors, that will be returning this route, also .

The Philipines has it’s problems as well , but we hope the group will be successful and navigate back to the safety of US waters, next year, in the proper season .

Being somewhat a local here, for now , I keep all piracy notices in a file , and notice that some of the piracy events here, are not publised globally.

Well , unoffically , Singapore has something like a gag order on the press , for domestic reasons , but you might know , that the Int’l press info that you get, is not complete, nor acurate , in order to protect homelands from Int’l scruntity .

They will probably hang me tomorrow for saying the above , Ouch !