Blue Water Sailing — June-July 2017

(^10) BLUE WATER SAILING • June / July 2017
{ CRUISINGDISPATCHES }
Another teenager was waiting in the
dinghy they had rowed about a mile
offshore to Rainbow, presumably with
plans of a robbery.
When one of the boys tripped on
the jib sheet, Tina poked her head up
the hatch to check and she was at-
tacked with a knife. Thankfully, Mark
was there to defend her and fought
back with the knife he used to fillet
fish. He saved her life, forcing the pi-
rates off the boat. From the incident,
the couple learned valuable lessons
they were quick to share.
“We feel like messengers for the
cruising community, because of our
strength,” Tina said. “It could have
been an elderly couple or a family with
small children that was attacked.”
ALTHOUGH RARE,
PIRATE ATTACKS HAPPEN
Somalia isn’t the only place where
pirates exist. According to Noonsite.
com, an online resource for reports
on piracy against cruisers, more than
200 attacks were reported in the last
five years throughout the Caribbean,
Bahamas and Haiti. Many end more
tragically than the attack on Rainbow,
with some cruisers being held hostage
or even killed.
The number of piracy and armed
robbery instances against larger-scale
commercial vessels is on the rise as
well, with 246 incidents reported
globally in 2015, according to the In-
ternational Marine Bureau. That’s an
average of one vessel being hijacked