Dave Kneale/Volvo OCean Race
This is the first time we are getting into waters which have a risk of piracy so we are wary ...
Friday 21 November 2008 17:00 GMT
By Cameron Kelleher
The seizure of an oil tanker off the coast of Somalia has placed piracy on the global news agenda over the past week, and the issue has become a talking point on board as the fleet head north towards India.
The eight Volvo Open 70s are heading south east of the Arabian Sea area where the Saudi-owned vessel was taken, however an exclusion zone will keep them in excess of 400 miles from the Somalian coastal waters.
In fact, their current routing will take them east of the Maldives – some 1,500 miles away from the scene of the incident.
Given what lay ahead on the second leg to Cochin, a security briefing, in conjunction with Dryad Maritime, an intelligence service, was held before the fleet departed Cape Town. Also discussed was how best to avoid collision with hundreds of errant fishing boats.
Besides the waters off the coast of Somalia, the regions of most concern are the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca, the stretch of water between west Malaysia and the Indonesian island of Sumatra that will feature in leg three.
As a general rule of thumb, the risk of piracy was reckoned to be one percent, but as Race Director Jack Lloyd said at the briefing, "you need to have a level of awareness".
And, according to Debbie Hadwen, the Chief Duty Officer, who’s team safeguard the boats 24-7 from race headquarters in Whiteley, there are practices and procedures in place to deal with any such incidents.
“We are sending our three-hourly reports to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Organisation who are responsible for security and piracy in the region,” she said. “In return, they regularly report to us on what warships are in the waters the fleet are travelling to should assistance be needed.
“If one of the boats was to be approached we also have the support of Control Risks, our security advisers, standing by to deal with any situation.”
Nonetheless, piracy remains a topic of discussion for a number of the crew members.
In a live onboard video conference with CNN, Telefonica Black navigator Roger Nilson cited the Strait of Malacca near Sri Lanka, as an area of concern. Particularly on the next leg and two additional passages through Asia to follow.
“This is the first time we are getting into waters which have a risk of piracy so we are wary. Nobody has ever raced in this area before,” Nilson said. “We have to go through the Malacca Straits which is a high-risk piracy area.”
”If you have this experience once, you don’t want it again because the chances that you will survive the next time are probably not as good as the first time.”
The “first time” Nilson refers to was in 1981 when he was part of a delivery of a 50-foot yacht from Antigua in the Caribbean to the west coast of the United States.
”They had a gun,” he recalls. “They tried to tell us they were Coast Guard and we had to go ashore with them. We were 12 miles off the Cuban coast but we refused to follow. We realised if we did that we’d probably be dead.
'We were ready to defend ourselves'
”We had prepared some Molotov cocktails. We had some guys who were trained in the marine corps and we were ready to defend ourselves. I called in a May Day on the radio and we managed to get a 20,000-tonne tanker to turn around and basically saved our lives.”
Guy Salter, the Media Crew Member aboard Ericsson 4, alluded to the Somalian incident in an overnight email.
”I guess it must be huge news onshore but in the last day, we have been getting the news of the piracy off Somalia,” he wrote. “Pirates come in all shapes and forms, from the fully-organized terrorist style, which we are reading about so much, to the opportunists.
”There are a lot of reported incidents, which are not piracy at all. I have sailed many, many miles throughout South East Asia and piracy was one of the big worries in this area, all too often curiosity is reported as piracy.”
His brother Jules, put his thoughts on the subject to camera. He said: “We’ve had a bit of training from our security adviser but it’s not something we might have to use.”
Ken Read, on the same clip on volvooceanrace.tv - concurred. The PUMA skipper said the threat was minimal given that the race route travels so far outside the danger zone. “I mentioned to my family that there was a very remote chance of risk,” he said.
Team-mate Sidney Gavignet added that he had more than enough to occupy his day than dwell on piracy. “I am concentrating on taking care of the boat. We are going fast, getting all this water in our face so we don’t think much about piracy,” the Frenchman said.
So, the fleet continues their fast reaching northwards in 20 knots, with the brain’s trust on board sticking to the tactical pattern established in this morning’s TEN ZULU REPORT.
By the 16:00 GMT Position Report, the Ericsson twins led the way with Anders Lewanders' Nordics, powering north-east, holding a nine-mile cushion to their big brothers on Ericsson 4.
Telefonica Blue and Green Dragon were locked together in the middle of the fleet and sharing third place at +39 Distance To Leader (DTL). PUMA (+41) was trying to muscle in on the action albeit with a bruised boat.
Then came Team Russia (+69) and Telefonica Black (+73). Delta Lloyd, seeking eastern promise, were at +99. Some consolation for skipper Roberto Bermudez came in the shape of the best 24-hour run of 508 nm. They also averaged the highest boat speed of 21.5 knots.
Although the fleet is split 100nm from first to last, the top five boats are all within 40 miles of each other, with just over 2500 miles to race to the finish. Game on.