Boy, thats a pretty heavy charge, and I wonder what the Royal Navy has to say about this? Thanks to David for sending me this one by the way, and we will see if there is any kind of a backlash from the public on this. Especially if the pirates execute the Chandlers because the ransom was not paid.
On a side note, the tactics and strategy that the pirates used in this particular case is interesting. They captured one boat, used that as the new mother ship, and went after other vessels in the process. This could potentially be expanded to be even more profitable, because they are able to stay out longer, cruise around as if a harmless merchant vessel, and collect any number of boats in the process. If unknowing vessels are traveling near a recently captured vessel, how are they to know if pirates are on board? So it is absolutely feasible that pirates could use these boats as ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’ in order to grab even more sheep. In the history of naval warfare and piracy, this is nothing new, but we must recognize the tactics and strategies and constantly re-evaluate our own strategies and tactics to deal with this. –Matt
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How the Royal Navy Stood and Watched as Pirates Snatched British Yacht Couple
BY RICHARD PENDLEBURY
November 20, 2009
MID-OCEAN, a degree or two shy of the equator, two ships are steaming south, apparently in convoy.
One is a Singaporean flagged container vessel of 25,000 tonnes, the Kota Wajar. The other is a British military tanker, flying the blue ensign of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Service. Neither was built for battle. Nor in normal circumstances would they be foes.
But a whiff of gunpowder is palpably in the air. Aboard the tanker, RFA Wave Knight, Royal Navy gun crews have closed up for action, their 30mm cannon and machine guns primed and ready.
A few hundred yards away on the Kota Wajar, Somali pirates, who had recently hijacked the vessel, possess a variety of small arms including rocket-propelled grenades.
These are high stakes, indeed, because both ships are on course to rendezvous with a British yacht drifting helplessly in the Indian Ocean.
Aboard this 38ft yacht, and held at gunpoint by a pirate advance party, are Paul and Rachel Chandler, a retired couple from Tunbridge Wells, Kent.
The Kota Wajar, in its new role as a pirate ‘mother ship’, is to scoop them up and carry them back to captivity and a multi-million-pound ransom in Somalia more than 200 miles to the north-west.