Piracy!!! Maybe i'll stay home?

[tertim]

Hello my fellow yachties, just like to share a few thoughts with you about piracy, it seems to invoke strong reactions from those who beleive that the Gulf of Aden, Malacca straights etc, are full of evil brigands waiting to plunder and send you to Davey Jones locker.
Of course being robbed and threathened or in extreme cases being killed is a very serious matter but you are more likely to be attacked walking at night in any big city ( In USA probably shot)
Don't be put off by all the negative stories you here 99% of yachts transit these so called danger areas quite safely.

Tertim

PS My cruising area is the Malacca straights

[Zanshin]

I wouldn't worry about those types of posts here. There is a small but very voluble group who discuss piracy as if it were commonplace and widespread. Notably, most of the members of that group have not (and most likely will not) ventured outside of their national waters. Those with first-hand experience of sailing in those waters are rare.

Do you take any particular precautions when sailing around Singapore and Malaysia?

[Naughtylus]

I was sailing down from Langkawi to Port Klang last year, and looked into this question at length to allay the fears of my wife (someone warned her that I would be in danger of pirates.)
First of all, there hasn't been a documented case of piracy involving a sailing yacht in the area between Thailand and Singapore for several decades.
The recent piracy incidents have all involved commercial vessels, where the captain's are obliged to carry a cash float for port dues etc, or where there was a valuable and disposable cargo.

Unfortunately, this is not the case around the Gulf of Aden - and now including the Seychelles area.
The (I believe justified) direct military action of certain governments on the pirates has caused a backlash, which has been felt by the unfortunate yachting individuals who happen to be from the same country, and who are targets of reprisal rather than useful commercial prizes.

The Indian Ocean is my backyard so to speak, and therefore pretty close to home.
Many sailors leaving Dubai for a major trip go South East towards the Maldives, then West across to Chagos and the Seychelles before heading North back to Muscat and Dubai.
This circuit has now become significantly less relaxed due to the influence of our Somalian friends.

[Omatako]

Originally Posted by Naughtylus

The Indian Ocean is my backyard so to speak, and therefore pretty close to home.
Many sailors leaving Dubai for a major trip go South East towards the Maldives, then West across to Chagos and the Seychelles before heading North back to Muscat and Dubai.

For a sailor who claims the Indian Ocean as his back yard you were probably just not thinking when you said that Chagos is west of the Maldives because in reality you would know that it is virtually due south.

Right?

[jerryrlitton]

The Ultimate Adventure Cruise

[rgscpat]

Staying at home won't protect you from Microsoft's piratical, predatory decision to quit supporting XP and force XP users to walk the plank off what had been their most reliable operating system and buy one of their supported products.

What, you don't call that piracy? I bet it affects many hundred times more sailors than the thugs off Somalia and such like.

And yes, a comment thread hijack is probably the closest thing to piracy that most folks here are ever going to see, grin.

Which leads into one of my favorite pet peeves, which is the utter failure of most people to assess risk with anything resembling accuracy. People worry about pirates, hurricanes, and rattlesnakes when they should be making more provision for traffic accidents, doldrums, and bee stings. Let's face it, if you're a boater in California, you're more likely to be killed by the Coast Guard (San Diego) or a deputy sheriff (Lake County) than molested by anything resembling pirates. (And most USCG folks do a professional and difficult job.)

Okay, ye scurvy dogs hae' paid yer ransom and yer free o' this hijack, aarrrr.

[ffiill]

Still love my Windows XP as on this my spare take to bed $100 ebay 1999 vintage IBM thinkpad!

[sailingdog]

LOL...nicely played.

Originally Posted by rgscpat

Staying at home won't protect you from Microsoft's piratical, predatory decision to quit supporting XP and force XP users to walk the plank off what had been their most reliable operating system and buy one of their supported products.

What, you don't call that piracy? I bet it affects many hundred times more sailors than the thugs off Somalia and such like.

And yes, a comment thread hijack is probably the closest thing to piracy that most folks here are ever going to see, grin.

Which leads into one of my favorite pet peeves, which is the utter failure of most people to assess risk with anything resembling accuracy. People worry about pirates, hurricanes, and rattlesnakes when they should be making more provision for traffic accidents, doldrums, and bee stings. Let's face it, if you're a boater in California, you're more likely to be killed by the Coast Guard (San Diego) or a deputy sheriff (Lake County) than molested by anything resembling pirates. (And most USCG folks do a professional and difficult job.)

Okay, ye scurvy dogs hae' paid yer ransom and yer free o' this hijack, aarrrr.

[steel]

Sorry, but I think we live in an artifically "safe" world which is causing men to get away with being wimpy. In the long run, this is really hurting us a lot.

So, I like piracy.

As far as I know it really doesn't take much to make the pirates go away. Get an M1A with the high capacity magazine, put it out one of the windows and empty it in to their boat if need be. The pirates never attack ships which they know are armed.

[ffiill]

Yes pirates attack unarmed ships such as the one the Israeli pirates attacked in International Waters the Med. this summer.
Problem is that Pirates are and always were heavily armed so if you want to try out the bullet proof capability of perhaps at most several inches of GRP feel free!
Anyway if you flaunt perhaps $100,000 of yacht in front of people who think they are rich if they have a bicycle! let alone an oil tanker or bulk carrier!