Somali Pirates Hijack Yacht with Four Americans Aboard

[joey69]

Originally Posted by sailr69

sailing though Muslin waters giving away Bibles. what else is there to say!

Muslin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[beowulfborealis]

Ugh. The media seems to want to portray these people as whacko Bible thumpers who got what they deserved. I looked through their web pages www.svquest.com and they seem like really seasoned sailors with a nice boat. They were just doing what any cruiser would like to do, travel the ocean in safety. These pirates are parasites. They are also becoming a lot more ruthless. Understand that they now often torture the captives and even strap your nutsack with zip ties. I wish I was Commander in Chief. I would pound the hell out of those pirate enclaves in Somalia with a battleship. Nothing like a 16" shell through your mail slot to make a pirate see the light. We did it before with the Barbary Pirates. Lets do it again.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by beowulfborealis

Ugh. The media seems to want to portray these people as whacko Bible thumpers who got what they deserved. I looked through their web pages www.svquest.com and they seem like really seasoned sailors with a nice boat. They were just doing what any cruiser would like to do, travel the ocean in safety. These pirates are parasites. They are also becoming a lot more ruthless. Understand that they now often torture the captives and even strap your nutsack with zip ties. I wish I was Commander in Chief. I would pound the hell out of those pirate enclaves in Somalia with a battleship. Nothing like a 16" shell through your mail slot to make a pirate see the light. We did it before with the Barbary Pirates. Lets do it again.

+1 100% agree about the quest crew (can't understand how people can make jokes about what happened to them) and the pirates... wipe them off the ocean.

ciao!
Nick.

[Aussiesuede]

Originally Posted by beowulfborealis

Ugh. The media seems to want to portray these people as whacko Bible thumpers w

From their website:

Our Mission: To allow the power of the Word to transform lives.
We seek fertile ground for the Word and homes for our Bibles. Often, the ultimate homes are best found by people who are already living locally and seeking and cultivating that fertile ground. AND even more extraordinary are the times when people have been praying for Bibles for their group or their schools and when we arrive we are often greeted by the attitude of, "We were expecting you." (that is, they were looking for their prayers to be answered. And...) "What took you so long?" Additionally, we are often an amazing encouragement to folks who are long past "the honeymoon" stage of their ministry!
These photos represent over 60,000 miles of seeking homes for the Bibles on the Quest and include areas from New Zealand to Alaska to Central America - and now from Panama, through French Polynesia, the Cooks, Samoa, Tonga and back to New Zealand. 2007 finds us in the Fiji Islands. Also, not all distributions are included. Anytime we have workers on the boat or come into the dock and have an opportunity to talk to people we find more homes for our Bibles. We have just tried to cover a few of the highlights of our Bible Ministry.

Bible Mission

[joey69]

Sounds like bible thumpers to me. They got caught smuggling contraband (illegal goods).

[kenny chaos]

"United States military officials on Saturday said they were assessing possible responses after Somali pirates hijacked a yacht with four Americans on board in the Arabian sea off the coast of Somalia."

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by beowulfborealis

They were just doing what any cruiser would like to do,

Really????

From their website

the carrying capacity of Quest - which was really strained getting those Bibles onto the boat as low as possible and without interfering with the function of a yacht at sea).

Bible Mission Pg.2

[joey69]

sorry about the caps, i can't hear myself sometimes..........

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by kenny chaos

"United States military officials on Saturday said they were assessing possible responses after Somali pirates hijacked a yacht with four Americans on board in the Arabian sea off the coast of Somalia."

That sounds positive. The US Military did do an excellent job with the MaerskAlabama. We can only hope they are as successful here.

Originally Posted by joey69

Sounds like bible thumpers to me. They got caught smuggling contraband (illegal goods).

The bibles are not at all relevant. The pirates certainly did not know about them when they took this cruising boat as a target of opportunity. Whether they were carrying or handing out bibles is completely irrelevant to this incident of piracy. These folks were cruisers and deserve our concern and best wishes.

It's a topic for another thread if you want to debate what if anything cruisers should carry and possibly hand out to locals - school supplies, or dvds, or . . . bibles.

[Mark1977]

Who gives a sh%# what they were doing. I don't get in on these topics , i don't believe in god and don't care if they did. Some of you guys gotta leave them alone as to what they were doing. While we all sit comfy around our computers these people are having things done to them you couldn't even imagine......

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by joey69

They got caught smuggling contraband (illegal goods).

Totally out of line. shame on you.

Nick.

[kjames]

I read Quest left the Blue Water Rally. Surely not a good decision (Blue Water Rallies - Latest News ). I missed the fact there were 4 people on board before reading this - all the more a tradegy:

"The Blue Water Rally is very distressed to learn of the hijacking of SV Quest on 18th February. Scott and Jean Adam joined the Oz-Med section of the Blue Water Rally just before Christmas and had been sailing with the rally from Phuket as far as Mumbai. Quest had taken on board two well known rally participants: Phyllis Mackay and Bob Riggle. However, she chose to take an independent route from Mumbai to Salalah, leaving the Rally on 15 February. All information is now being handled by the US Central Command and their spokesman in Dubai.
We feel desperately sorry for our four friends onboard and our thoughts are with them and their friends and family. All the yachts still on the rally are fine and well"

[Dreaming Yachtsman]

I offer my comments from the perspective of having spent many years searching the ocean for various things (usually ships/submarines but other items as well).

To those of you advocating overwhelming force directed against the pirates, I would like to point out that The "Big ocean, small boat" principle applies. There are not enough ships in the combined navies of the world to cover the entire piracy region densely enough to completely prevent pirate attacks. What seems to work effectively, however, are convoys of vessels protected by a few well armed escorts.

beowulfborealis, the last battleship was decommissioned years ago so your call for 16" shells rained on pirate enclaves won't happen. Granted, 5" shells from currently in service ships will also ruin your day. Better yet, a Tomahawk land attack missile has almost pin point accuracy. Unfortunately, for the price of a Tomahawk you could probably buy half a Somali city.

As many others have mentioned in this thread, the governments of the free world need to pursue coordinated action against the pirates. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

Whether they were carrying or handing out bibles is completely irrelevant to this incident of piracy.

yes, I agree, but I don't think it will help their situation.

As you probably have done many times whilst cruising, gaining knowledge about the cultural norms and a respectful tolerance of them is very important for cruisers.

I do agree with you that the upcoming negotiations aren't really up to us to 'second guess' on this forum, but it is going to be of intense interest to us.

In the areas of Indonesia and up through into the Med I would have removed those sort of things off my website. I would even consider sealing (like a customs seal of alcohol etc) the books so I could say: "Mate, not only wasn't I intending to hand them out, I was securing them so you'd know I wasn't."

I have some memory - and I can't find a link on Google - of a couple being arrested for giving out religious pamphlets in Malaysia or Indonesia about 2 years ago or so.
OK just found a link or 2..
Americans Accused of Giving Christian Pamphlets to Muslims,

The Constitution of Malaysia formally ..... limits the “propagation” of other faiths.

Malaysia Religion

So we as cruisers do need to be culturally sensitive. And perhaps there is a need to reinforce cultural sensitivites on this forum to folks planning their trips.


Lets hope it does not affect the negotiations. I doubt it will have any affect - they are just after money.

[kenny chaos]

"So we as cruisers do need to be culturally sensitive. And perhaps there is a need to reinforce cultural sensitivites on this forum to folks planning their trips."

Duly noted. thank-you