The Chandlers book

[tcm]

AFAIK they didn't lose their yacht - it was returned to them via the RN and fixing it up is their current project, although the boom has bulllet holes etc.... and they're planning to set off again.

There's far more piracy than the general public hears about btw - met another couple here in lanza last year who had been hijacked at sea etc.

Does anyone remember the Chandlers kidnapping "breaking" on BBC? - some clot/expert being interviewed spouting that their boat was worth around a million quid! Pretty unhelpful stuff.

They were well outside the general pirate zone at the time, really. It's only more recently that the riskier region has expanded south, now even to northern Madagascar.

Any trip at sea in a boat is a calculated risk, which sometimes doesn't come off. And when it doesn't, yep, that hindsight is really 20-20. ARCy hitch-hikers will soon be upon me in las palmas, hoping for a lift across to the carib, and if in a silly (?) mood i will responding incredulously and saying "sailing across the atlantic? Are you mad?"

 

[30boat]

The Chandlers were victims of a crime committed in international waters.

Reading many of the above posts, you could be led to believe that they were the ones who were in the wrong. They didn't start piracy in the Indian Ocean and haven't changed the level of danger for anyone else in that Ocean or elsewhere.

It has cost them dearly: What value do you put on being illegally incarcerated for a year and being continually threatened with losing your life or being beaten, starved and subjected to other atrocities?
In addition, they lost their yacht and they and their family apparently contributed significant sums of money towards the ransom and towards the cost of their rescue.

I also understand that before heading off on a round the world cruise, they held respectable jobs, paid their taxes and were a normal respectable couple. That they had a sense of adventure and did something about it, is commendable.

Do they deserve the support of the UK government when sailing in international waters?
I believe yes

Did they deserve the FCO efforts to help with their release?
I believe yes

Did they get preferrential treatment?
I don't believe so. The Govt and its representatives did what they would do to help any UK citizen in trouble aboroad, no more and no less. There was no SAS mission to release them, no government ranson paid, the FCO worked within its normal rules and did what it could. Others tried to help too.

Do they deserve to try and make something of their ordeal by selling their story and publishing a book: Yes they do. There is nothing distasteful about this. There are people who are interested in hearing their version of the story and who may be curious enough about it to buy the book, and not rely on tabloid reporting or other speculative sources of information.

They are as entitled to this as the ex-soldiers who capitalise on their (paid) experiences in war who then publish their memoirs, or our politicians who get far greater sums for publishing their memoirs.

What I find extremely distastful about the "i wouldn't have done that" brigade in this thread, is that they haven't once offered an alternative course of action that the Chandlers could reaslitically have taken and make derogaratory comments about their decisions based on speculation and ignorance of the full facts.

I agree with most of what you say .However by choosing to ignore local,and not so local,advice they put themselves in the position to be abducted.It was a risk that in their opinion was worth taking.Had nothing happened nobody would have anything to say about it.About "they haven't once offered an alternative course of action that the Chandlers could reaslitically have taken",there were alternatives,like having the boat shipped to a safer area or leaving the boat there until conditions changed.It is very easy,I know,to comment on their actions from behind a computer screen but this also allows for some clear thinking.I was crewing on a boat sailing from H.Kong to Portugal in 2000 and all the stages in the trip were very well prepared .I'm pretty sure that a very tangible threat like this wouldn't have been taken lightly.One thing we always did was to ask for local advice.

 

[snooks]

Just seen the Chandlers at the CA, very good talk and they addressed a lot of the points raised on this thread.

They knew about the risk of piracy, but didn't believe the risk was great enough to abort their trip. They also let their insurers know their passage plan the day before and they raised no objections.

Their family raised the money, and the family have told them it's basically not their concern, and they should just get on with their life.

They are likable people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, most of us end up in rough weather or a ding on the boat if we make a mistake, their ordeal lasted a lot longer.

 

[Slow_boat]

I've not read the book yet but I do recall that at the time the general view was that they had done their research, took sensible action to mitigate the risks and were just plain unlucky to get found by a pirate launch that had just failed to take a comercial ship.

Or we could continue in the 'blame culture'

 

[awol]

I think I preferred the thread where the RN were castigated for being idle on-lookers and not getting stuck in with their (on-the-spot) Royal Marines - or has that been forgotten with the latest flavour of blaming the Chandlers for deliberately supporting piracy?
If I could be bothered, I'd correlate the posters on the "RN should be ashamed" thread with the "Chandlers brought it on themselves" contributors - I wouldn't be surprised if they were the same. I'm sorry Webby, I am no longer one of your silent majority!

 

[AIDY]

I'm reading the book.... however I'm not funding their new boat as it's from my local library

 

[RichardS]

The book is really interesting so far.

I had not realised that they had two encounters with different warships on their way to rendevous with the captured tanker and that only three pirates were left on the Lynn Rival. The other nine had gone off on some kind of sortie on the skiffs which had been tied to the Lynn Rival for several days until then. The nine missing pirates had still not returned at the time of the final rendevous so I don't yet know what happened to them.

Interesting conjecture by Paul Chandler about whether to secretly knobble the Bukh, which was struggling to pull the pirate skiffs, and leave them stranded in the middle of nowhere, waiting for naval rescue. Would the pirates then taken to their skiffs (no cooking facilities or shelter) and left the Chandlers behind or taken the Chandlers with them which would be even worse than continuing with the yacht?

The pirates were more cunning than I expected. Always keeping the Chandlers one below and one above deck and never allowing them to speak.

For a lone sailor, I could see a chance with only three pirates and a warship close by who knew from a VHF call who was on board. A dive into the sea, swim underwater for as long as possible and hope the warship will blast the yacht. However, this was never an option for a separated couple.

Richard