Laura Dekker

[bengtinge]

Originally Posted by rgscpat

Apparently Laura Dekker and her family have a pretty good plan with frequent inspections and some scheduled haul-outs, plus the option of avoiding the Red Sea if things look dicey. Quite possibly they'll arrange an escort or convoy if she does get to the Red Sea approaches.

Possibly the Swedish naval vessel Carlskrona could escort her. The Swedish defence sent its helicopter home, because there is a lack of helicopters in the Swedish defence, and it was better needed elsewhere. Without a helicopter pirate attacks can be stopped only if it happens near the defense boat, and only with difficulty. So the vessel will only do escorting.

A problem for Laura I read is that a leasure sailboat can not keep the speed the freight ships have, even if using the engine, and can not follow such a convoy. Maybe there are leisure boat convoys. I don't think a naval vessel wants to waste time by escorting a single sailboat. A civilian boat can not protect her, because, as you know, pirates can attack big freight ships.

If she uses the engine a lot, does it count as a sail circumnavigation?

[MacG]

1) Depending on seastate the speed of a sailingyacht of 38 ft with moderate enginepower shall not exceed 6-7 knots.
It is very unlikely that a warship - frigate - will escort her. Although it is too early to say so. In a discussion with someone of the Dutch Navy it was said that yachts were not be escorted. (in general).
That such is the case, the Lürssen yacht might have proved. Only the sheer luck that one frigate was very close, prevented the Somali's from capturing this boat.

Secondly the modus operandi of the Somali's have changed. They operrate more southerly of the regular shipping lane and launch their attacks from motherships. They operate through a wide network of informers, mostly Arab fishingvessels who supply any useful information to the radio-operators of the Somali & Yemenite piratenetwork.

The other way round, around Cape Good Hope, might be a more relevant possibility but then she should give West-Africa a wide berth.

Forget about special escorts by warships.

[rgscpat]

And, yes, there are frequently informal cruiser convoys. Again speed is relevant; being stuck with a slowpoke makes everyone else more vulnerable. Radio silence is also practiced, or if it needs to be broken, the members of the convoy could agree on some code words.

[MacG]

My question: Where would you catch up a yacht? Coming from the south?