Med Asia Sailing Safari

[miyagimoon]

The Med Asia Sailing Safari was a "Rally" which we organised and ran to take boats from the Med to SE Asia via the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. It consisted of 5 boats who left Kastellerizo, Greece in October 2017 with all boats arriving safely at their destinations (2 boats went to Cochin, India, 3 went to the Seychelles) by April 2018.

On route the Safari visited Cyprus, Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti and Socotra.

There were no problems, no scary bits and no pirate incidents.

Throughout the trip through the High Risk Area (HRA) all boats had signed up with the UKMTO and had daily communication and sighting with either Military Aircraft flying over the area or Navy Boats sailing around the area.

It was a great experience with some incredibly good sailing.

Should anyone be considering this trip and would like some information I would be more than happy to help.

[atoll]

great job!
i followed the trip on the facebook groups page.
https://www.facebook.com/medasiasail...NrAPGs&fref=nf

many great photos,and good info on the stops.
perhaps you could change the page settings to public now the trip is over?

[Paul L]

I followed the trip on FB too. Seems like all went pretty well. What's your opinion of the security situation for independent cruisers heading up the Red Sea route?

[miyagimoon]

Originally Posted by Paul L

I followed the trip on FB too. Seems like all went pretty well. What's your opinion of the security situation for independent cruisers heading up the Red Sea route?

Like it or not there is still a threat. Most activity is terrorist related coming from Yemen. They have on numerous occasions using skiffs tried attacking Commercial vessels. Only to end up in a fire fight with the armed guards on-board the container ship.

My personal opinion is that the Pirate threat is all but over. Having said that there is always a possibility. This was the closest we got to seeing Pirates.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3Aa...&feature=share

Did we feel threatened? No, it was very assuring seeing and speaking to the Aircraft flying above and the Navy boats sailing around. In the end we were more concerned about being able to get weather forecasts etc especially as our Sat-phone died just as we entered the HRA and the Autopilot gave up the ghost about 6 days earlier. We have a Hydrovane but needed to sail as apposed to Motor/Motor sail for that to work. Very tiring having to hand steer that far.