How sad that a Blue Water Rally boat has been taken by pirates 200 miles off Oman. s/y Quest, who was here in Cochin just a couple of weeks ago taking part in the Blue Water Rally, went off traveling in India whilst the rest of the rally made their passage plans and then left before Quest had returned from their trip. The rally was planning to do the Arabian Sea crossing together from Mumbai.
I came across this post on Followtheboat.com regarding the capture of the S/Y Quest.
The bloggers from Followtheboat.com have sailed through Pirate Alley and blogged about the experiences extensively so they speak from experience.
This a blog well-worth reading on the subject. They are posing some good questions about why cruisers would ever cross the area without a convoy.
Maybe the crew of the Quest got into a situation where they felt they had no choice. All we can do is hope for their safe release as soon as possible.
Hi, Jamie here from http://www.followtheboat.com. We took down that article in the end in light of what eventually happened to Quest. The timing between that going live and the sad demise of Quest was too sensitive. I’m tempted to re-post it in some months time as I still stick by what I wrote. Thanks for the props.
Fair winds,
Jamie
s/y Esper