Fishing vessels and intentional ramming incident

[pbmaise]

I never spoke of that morning here before. Recently I learned my event was not unique and the reason behind it.

It was about 5 am and I was at the helm under autopilot. Straits of Malaca near Langkawi.

I was approached by a fishing vessel from behind that was going a bit faster on starboard side. It was close but not distressing close. It appears it slowed down to my speed and rode along side for about two minutes.

At first I thought it was another curious on looker. Or perhaps they might want to offer to sell me some fresh fish. Suddenly it made a sharp turn towards me and I immediately cut throttle. The vessel rammed my starboard ama at the bow. It broke off the forward tip of the bow all the way back to the cleat.

This is a pretty strong area of the vessel.

The fishing vessel just continued on its way never stopping to say oops or anything.

I was already on my way to Phuket and it took four man weeks to patch up. I just considered myself lucky they didn't strike midway along the ama. I wanted to believe this was an accident.However, at the time it sure didn't seem to have been accidental.

I told few people about this owing to the fact I considered this to have been my fault. I have always said to myself I should have been more defensive.

About a year ago was one of those rare times I retold this story when I heard something interesting. The person asked me if I knew local fishing beliefs.

Many fisherman believe their vessels become cursed with bad luck and small catches. They also believe it is possible to get rid of bad luck and that it is possible for bad luck to jump from one vessel to another.

To get luck to jump, fishing vessels intentionally ram other vessels especially yachts. Obviously big thick wooden fishing vessels protected with tires can do this all day.

Has anyone heard of this or experienced this?

I am so still not sure if vessel was Malay or Thai.

[jmh2002]

Yes I seem to remember something like this being mentioned on the Sailing Nandji Channel https://www.youtube.com/c/FrothLyfeSailingNandji/videos but sorry I really can't remember which video it was.

They were also worried about being rammed for this reason of "getting rid of the bad luck".