This past February, two Antares owners traveled across the Arabian Sea, into the Gulf of Aden and through the Red Sea. The region is notorious for pirate activity and this year saw the capture of two sailing yachts and the consequent murder of four Americans aboard SV Quest.

This is the story of cruising through the notorious “Pirate Alley” as told by both John Wild, owner of Antares Spirit of Nina who was traveling around the world with the Blue Water Rallies organization, and Ron Bruce, owner of Antares Miss Jody who along with his wife Joanne, have been sailing around the world since the winter of 2005.

[link on photos to enlarge]

“It’s a numbers game,” says John Wild. “About 100 yachts go through the Gulf of Aden every year.”

John was a participant in the 2009 -2011 round the world rally organized by the now defunct Blue Water Rallies (BWR) organization. Spirit of Nina is the only boat from the group that completed the rally. The remaining boats are in Salalah, Oman awaiting shipment by transport vessel to Turkey.

“About 300 miles off the coast of Somalia, two vessels started shadowing us for about four hours. Things were quite tense at the time,” says John in an understated manner from his home in Southern France. “We never saw the boat, only a red navigation light trailing off in the distance.”

The protocol was clear – black out the boats, including the reflective strip on the hull, limit communication to a pre-determined time, and stay within .5 miles of one another during the night. If boats were to approach, appearing as blips on the radar, they would close up in a tight formation. In this case, it worked.

“The excitement began about 4 AM. First a 140 ft. cargo ship appeared on our AIS. Her course would result in passing 2.5 miles to our stern. We tracked her until she was in radio range, I called her, she changed course to pass 5 miles to our stern. One of our boats was lagging 2 miles behind; he managed to catch up before the ship arrived. While this was going on a second ship appeared on my AIS. She was 1,160 ft. long and 185 ft. wide, and projected to cross our bow at a distance of 1.5 miles. Too Close. She answered my VHF radio calls when she came closer, she acknowledged our presence, but held her course. We slowed down to give more clearance and she passed 2 miles on our bow.” Writes Ron Bruce, who led the flotilla of four boats from the Maldives to the Gulf of Aden aboard his Antares Miss Jody.


Ron explains that the intention was to stay within .5 miles of each other after nightfall. If they were separated by more than that, it would have become more difficult to judge how close an intersecting boat would come to one of the group.

About a week after this incident took place, and only about 150 miles from that location, the Danish sailing vessel ING was hijacked by Somali pirates.

As it turns out, no matter how many precautions you take, it’s still a gamble as to who gets to make the safe passage and who doesn't.

It was by sheer coincident that John met up with Ron aboard his Antares Miss Jody. Along with one other boat from the BWR group, John opted to remain in the Maldives. The rest of the BWR group were going to continue north along the coast of India and west across the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Remaining with the BWR group would have meant a lot more stops for fuel, and would have involved costly agents, John explained.

“Most cruisers refer to the following 5 days as the ‘Maldives Panic’”, writes Ron. “Agency data revealed the pirate activity had increased 10 fold and moved from the Gulf of Aden into the Arabian Sea. During the month of January the number of attacks had increased to 28 plus 3 more in February. The activity was mostly in the shipping lanes from the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Aden, south along the coast of India. The only positive parts of the reports were that all attacks were against commercial ships.”

Ron debated changing their course and heading to South Africa and rounding Cape of Good Hope in Dec 2011 when the summer weather arrived. They even considered returning 3000 miles to Singapore and shipping Miss Jody back to the US.

“We eventually decided to head north to the Red Sea on the condition that Joanne would return to Pensacola via air. By this time there were 20 cruisers in the harbour, all deliberating what to do. Approximately one half of them decided to remain in SE Asia, 2 decided to head to South Africa, 4 decided to proceed up the west coast of India to Pakistan then across the Arabian Sea to the coast of Oman. We and 10 others decided to head NW to the Gulf of Aden then west to the Red Sea. Miss Jody [and three others] decided to sail together,” writes Ron.

A perfect storm was brewing. The revolution in Egypt had already started; Yemen and others were to follow as part of the wave of political discontent in the Arab world that would frame the Gulf of Aden. On top of that, a Somali man had been recently convicted in a US court for his role in the high-seas piracy that led to the standoff of a U.S.-flagged commercial vessel. Sadly, the casualties in the sailing community would soon to be felt.

Quest, owned by California couple Scott and Jean Adam with Phyllis Mackay and Bob Riggle on board as crew, was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was hijacked February 18, 240 nautical miles off Oman. Four days later, they were murdered by Somali pirates.

The Adams were a relatively new addition to the BWR group having joined in Thailand, but Phyllis and Bob had participated in the rally several years earlier and had been crewing on a number of BWR yachts.

John describes Phyllis, who crewed aboard Spirit of Nina for about five months, as an energetic and adventurous person, adding that she will be greatly missed. (Quest broke away from the BWR group on February 15 and the events that occurred after the hijacking are well documented on CNN and on noonsite.)

To say the passage through the Arabian Sea was uneventful would be an understatement as there were several encounters with small fishing boats and unidentified vessels along the way. Luckily, none of them were of real threat. Link here to read excerpts from Ron’s concise log entries of this passage.

On the seventh day of the passage, John and the other BWR boat continued to Salalah to meet the rest of the group, while Miss Jody and the other boat – Emmanuel - changed course and headed to Al Mukalla in Yemen.

“…Emmanuel and I decided to depart from the group and head toward the International Transit Corridor (IRTC), 200 miles to the west. The IRTC is a trek 600 miles east to west through the Gulf of Aden, intended to provide a specified route for ships to pass under the protection of coalition war ships. Only one problem, most of the pirate activity had moved SE to the Arabian Sea and the war ships are not allowed to fire on any vessel unless they are fired on first. We made land fall on day 10 and 1500 miles, at Al Mukalla, Yemen,” writes Ron. In another two weeks, they would safely complete their passage through the Red Sea.

Meanwhile, upon reaching Salalah, John made arrangements for a memorial service for the owners and crew of Quest and invited the US ambassador to Oman to address the group. Also in attendance was Maritime Liaison Officer Captain Mike Lodge from MARLO, the military coast guard stationed in Bahrain. While he couldn't prohibit anyone from continuing on the journey, Captain Lodge strongly discouraged the rest of the flotilla from continuing.

In the height of the emotional drama – all the participants, with the exception John, withdrew from continuing the passage and opted to have their boats shipped to Turkey via transport vessel.

“Everybody was getting frightened. It really was a case of paranoia with the Blue Water Rally group,” explains John about the consequent dismantling of the Blue Water Rallies organization that ended its operations after nearly 14 years and 8 successful world rallies.

With the consequences weighing heavily on the group, John left Salalah with three other boats on March 3rd and sailed up the Red Sea. “It was a bit nerve wracking,” says John in yet another understatement. Spirit of Nina is currently in Greece awaiting his return.

John believed that with a strong presence of the coalition naval force, it would be reasonably safe to continue on along the IRTC. The mandate of the EU Naval Force is to monitor the situation and to provide safe passage for ships carrying food aid to Somalia in hopes of creating stability in a region ravaged by civil war since 1991. However, the rules of engagement are very specific.

“They basically have their hands tied and cannot help you if you get hit by pirates. They can only get involved if they are fired on. We were warned of this and they stressed that you must not think that warships will sort it out for you,” explained John. From 2008 to 2011, 185 vessels have been hijacked, 9 of these were sailboats. To date, there are 660 people being held captive by pirates.

“It’s a very personal call – I don’t think I’d be able to do it again,” he says when asked about what advise he would give to sailors considering sailing around the world. With cash incentives of $5,000 US rewarded for the first pirate to board a vessel, and access to more sophisticated means of transport and arms, there is little hope for a swift resolution for piracy in the near future.

Another round the world cruise isn't completely out of the question. John flirts with the idea of cutting across the Maldives from the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius before rounding the Cape of Good Hope and following the west coast of Africa to the Canary Islands.