Pirates on the horizon

Emirates Team New Zealand Media Update: Hamish Hooper blogs from onboard CAMPER on Day 10

Pirates on the horizon

Latest position report: Groupama first, Puma 84nm adrift, Telefonica 97, CAMPER 119, Abu Dhabi 236.

So as the fleet head north we slowly get closer and closer to the ‘pirate exclusion zone’ on the western side of the Indian Ocean.

Pirates initially make you think of smelly drunk men standing on a peg leg with parrot on their shoulder, unfortunately the issue isn’t so comical; it is a very real and present danger that everyone in this race is taking very seriously.

Piracy is a huge ‘industry’ if you like, I believe in the past year there has been around a hundred million dollars paid in pirate ransoms. The unfortunate thing about piracy especially in Somalia is that it has been driven in a large part by desperation of the people there just to survive.

There have been some pretty massive measures taken by the Volvo race committee in sending the fleet on a slight detour then shipping the boats through what has been identified as the most high-risk part of the leg. This may seem a bit drastic, but it gives a pretty clear indication of the scale of piracy these days- and I’m not talking about computer and movie piracy!

All kiwis and sailors alike know all to well that only a matter of weeks ago marked the 10-year anniversary of our most famous and internationally respected master mariner Sir Peter Blake’s tragic death at the hands of pirates at the mouth of the Amazon River in Brazil, so its not just occurring in the area where we are now, but all around the world.

Even just today Will our navigator had a message on the SatC reporting an attempted pirate attack in the Gulf of Aden of a tanker. I must stress this is a very long way away from where we are, so no need for concern.
Besides, if they were out in their little boats now, they would more than likely be very seasick pirates, and be left behind a long way in our wake as we are doing boat speeds of around 17-18 knots at times through a large 2 metre sea state.

And as Salty so rightly says, “I think these boats would scare them a little bit as they wouldn’t know what to do with them if they did get them, so we are a pretty low target.”

From our oldest, Trae, to our youngest, Adam, the guys are not letting the piracy issue be a distraction and keeping their focus purely on the boat speed, but as Adam says that doesn’t mean there isn’t concern, “I think the most concerned person out there is my Mum at the moment. She is not the happiest, but she will be pleased to know that we aren’t going right through the middle of their hunting ground.”

So for us on CAMPER our entire focus is to push the boat as fast as possible all the way until the finish line. We are still drag racing, and have another 48 hours of good breeze left before things get tricky again.

Trae reminded us all today that there are only 4 more shopping days until Christmas if we haven’t yet got around to buying all of our presents yet… Thanks Trae!

Pictures of CAMPER, video footage and audio files are available upon request. Further information and race updates will be available on www.etnzblog.com

The latest video from onboard CAMPER is here http://etnzblog.com/#!2011/12/pirates-on-the-horizon

The latest audio from onboard CAMPER is here http://etnzblog.com/#!2011/12/audio-trae-and-adam-on-the-piracy-risk

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