I've held off on responding to this tragic thread but am compelled to chime in now.
First, beyond any doubt, this is a tragedy and affects all of us in the sailing community regardless of how often we may (or may not) leave our dock/mooring/anchorage. Having said that, I first want to respond to someone (can't remember who) who said they made the mistake of heading off on their own. I tend to agree since from everything I've read about that area, prudent sailors don't go anywhere except in convoy. For whatever reasons - and it's likely we'll never really know - these four sailors decided to sail those waters alone. Having said that, I understand that we (the US through the US Navy) have a large presence in those waters and our ships 'shadow' large merchant ships (freighters and tankers, etc..) but are also just over the horizon when "convoys" of sailboats sail from A to B in those waters and notify the Navy of their intended course. That's the way most sailors I've heard of transit those waters. For whatever reason, these folks decided to go it alone. In terms of what Lew suggests, I can't for the life of me see where their religious leanings (or zeal) had anything to do with this at all. First of all, I don't believe (I could be wrong, though) that they ever were even near Somalia so it's not like the government(non-existent)/pirate hierarchy/whatever targeted them for 'preaching'. From what I've read about this instance (and the recent spate of pirate attacks) this has nothing to do with anything except as a means to get cash - either by ransom, or selling a freighter's cargo. Unless we've got some really good interrogators around (Guantanamo anyone?) I doubt we'll every find out why those pirates (I was about to say 'kids' since they're mostly teenagers!) shot the 4 of them. Or why, when the Navy boarded after the pirates fired off an RPG, they found two pirates dead, evidently killed by the other pirates. The bottom line is that this was a tragedy. Could this have been prevented by sailing in convoy - maybe. But it is what it is and we'll never really know the reasons why it happened. Steve Weinstein S/V CAPTIVA 1997 Hunter 376, Hull #376 Sailing out of Oyster Bay, NY All outgoing mail protected by VIPRE A/V ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lew Hodgett" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2011 8:14 PM Subject: Re: [Liveaboard] Pirates get another one > Here in Los Angeles, the reports continue to come from interviews with > friends > and the priests at St Monica's church, their home parish, emplacing > the religious > thrust of this sail around the world program. > > In the end, that religious zeal may have been their downfall. > > Lew > > _______________________________________________ > Liveaboard mailing list > [email protected] > To adjust your membership settings over the web > http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard > To subscribe send an email to [email protected] > > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ > > To search the archives > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] > > The Mailman Users Guide can be found here > http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
