I heard over the local news not too long ago about a small 60 yacht that was held by law enforcement personnel off Ireland. Supposedly the boat came from down here in the Caribbean (Trinidad) and had quite a stash aboard. Do you think that this is a regular occurence since yachts are apparetly high profiled pieces of ownership and people would think hard to imagine a yacht loaded with illicit narcs?
I wonder if the owner was aboard or had any knowledge of the trip? The yacht may have even been stolen. Having said that, some people do the craziest things!
Hi, It seems that there is some substance ( no pun intended) to the story. http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/1106/drugs.html
I can't believe that an owner of a yacht worth a couple million dollars (if it could even be sold in this market) would risk it for a meer 500m euros I'm sure he could make more by investing in..... . No it really must have been stollen.
It was a 60-foot yacht, but there is a possibility that it could of been stollen. But a 60 foot yacht making it on her own bottom from Trinidad to Ireland?
My father motor/sailed a 60ft 50/50 ketch from Gib to the USVI and my step father motor/sailed a 55 footer from Panama to the Med. Both had extra fuel carriers on deck.
Hi, During mynintroduction to this profession I was lucky enough to get to sail on a 50' ketch that had a tacking angle of somewhere near 180 Deg from NZ to Panama. Amongst other mishaps we suffered a broken forestay which made out ability to point even worse when running under an emergency rigged one. At one stage between Easter Island and Peru we spent 31 days on the same tack. We were plotting our position on a Pilot Chart and found that we almost mirrored the route taken by the old Tea Clippers from San Fransisco to Callao.
Hi, This is why someone would risk a couple of million dollars to make 500M Euro. http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert.cgi
I am alarmed but in the same breath, I am not. These boats and their owners and crew convey a certain image. Status, pomp and the like. Drug banging is the last thing you would expect right? Wrong. A few years ago, we detained a yacht here for the same thing.
Nothing remarkable about this... even if it is a MacGregor 65, which would not be my first choice for an ocean passage, it is still quite do-able
