Piracy in modern Southeast Asia, setting the record straight.

Part 1: Introduction by Scott Neuman, Associated Press editor

Commissioned by Bianca Hein.

Ghosting along at sunset far from civilization on an extended cruise of Southeast Asia, the tranquility of twilight is shattered by the distant whirr of a powerful outboard engine. Within moments a high-speed boat emerges from the shadows of a hidden cove on an intercept course with your own hopelessly becalmed yacht. As the vessel closes in, you see the silhouette of a group of men and they're holding what look like assault rifles. It's every cruiser's worst nightmare. But how real is the threat?

Scott Neuman and Bianca Hein - both sailors and both editors - Neuman the Associated Press editor and Hein the former managing editor of SEA Yachting, will address the piracy issue in an ambitious series of articles that cover all aspects of piracy.

Taken together, we aim to have them become the definitive word on the subject in Southeast Asia - especially as it applies to pleasure yachts.

Be forewarned, however: your preconceptions about piracy - about its frequency, its geographic distribution, advisable precautionary measures, even the very definition of the crime itself - are likely to be challenged.

You'll hear from some of the biggest names in the Southeast Asia's yachting community. Top charter company owners, marina managers and delivery skippers will lend their many combined years of first-hand experience in these waters.

As for this writer, I became interested in this issue largely at the confluence of my own (limited) yachting experience and my work as a journalist. While covering travel and tourism at The Asian Wall Street Journal, I wrote frequently about the economic impact of travel warnings on the region, particularly those issued by the United States and other "Western" governments. In my current job as an editor at the Associated Press, stories dealing with piracy frequently cross my desk.

And some of you might remember reading, in the March-April issue of this [SEA Yachting Vol 1 No 5] publication, of my ill-fated passage aboard a 28-foot sloop through a late-season typhoon in the South China Sea. Ironically, as I described my planned voyage to yachting and non-yachting friends alike, hardly anyone inquired about the weather. The number-one question was: "Aren't you afraid of pirates?"

I doubt any of those friends had perused the International Maritime Organization's database on piracy, but had they, the figures contained there might have bolstered their concern. In 2005, there were 97 acts of piracy "reported to have occurred or to have been attempted" in the South China Sea, including Indonesia, another 20 in the Malacca Strait. But the raw statistics tell only part of the story. If we break those numbers down, we find that half the incidents in the Malacca Strait were only "attempted," a vague definition that can rely entirely on a jittery skipper's interpretation of events. Another 16 in the South China Sea fall within this category. So how many of the rest are real instances of piracy, i.e., where the vessels were boarded while underway? Only 20 cases (25 percent) in the South China Sea and 8 in the Malacca Strait would fit that definition. The others, according to the IMO, "occurred at anchor or on berth."

That still leaves a number of dangerous incidents - 24 incidents of the 91 in total resulted in "actual violence used against the crew", which ranged from being "roughed up" to kidnapping of the captain, as did happen in a few cases.

But by far the most telling figure for most of us is the number 1. That's how many acts of piracy in Southeast Asia last year actually touched a pleasure yacht. All the others involved commercial vessels such as bulk carriers, container ships or fishing boats. In a future issue, we'll take an in-depth look at the single incident involving a yacht, in which no one was hurt and in which, according to the IMO report, the pirate booty amounted to "cash, ship's stores and crew's personal belongings." (The hapless yacht concerned, the UK-registered Ten Large, appears to have run afoul of pirates again earlier this year off Tioman Island, Malaysia, where more cash, personal belongings and "portable items" were snatched.)

These numbers concur with what many in the region's yachting industry have been trying to make clear over the steady din of the piracy issue.

"In 20 years in and around the Malacca Strait - supposedly some of the world's most pirate-infested waters - I haven't heard of a single incident of real piracy on a pleasure yacht," says Mark Ray, a long-time marina manager, formerly of the Republic of Singapore Yacht Club and now at the Royal Phuket Marina, Thailand. Still, Ray has heard his share of stories. "Typically," says Ray, "they go something like this: some skipper with a yacht whose hull speed is about 7 knots is chased by 'pirates' in a high-speed boat and manages to give them the slip at something like 9-10 knots."

The economic and psychological impact of piracy remains great, however, even for those such as Ray, who have an accurate sense of the real odds of becoming a victim. He readily acknowledges that "people, myself included, have become more reluctant to render assistance."

Patti Seery, who owns and was the project manager in the building of her Indonesia-based, traditional 49.75-metre phinisi-style schooner Silolona (featured on the cover of the last issue of SEA Yachting) which was locally built to German Lloyds standards, says "a good 40 percent" of her initial conversations with prospective clients concerns piracy. "I think people are terrified," says Seery, who has been in the charter business in Southeast Asia since the mid'80s. "I tell them it's way overblown."

Many are convinced by Seery's reassurances, but many more are not. It's impossible, she says, to quantify how much business has been lost as a result. Seery herself also has to contend with a USgovernment warning against "unnecessary travel" to Indonesia that was issued in the aftermath of the 2002 Bali bombings and, since then, regularly renewed.

"The whole piracy issue is a huge misconception, and totally blown out of proportion when you consider the sheer amount of traffic" that goes through ports such as Singapore and Hong Kong, says Chris Schaefer, a megayacht captain with 14 years of experience in the region. "It would be interesting to get some regular crime statistics to compare with the figures on piracy." Tanjung Priok, Jakarta's commercial port - given the more than 7,000 ships that call there, each with an average crew complement of 15 - may be considered roughly comparable to a city of 100,000 people. "If you took a community that size, would 40 incidents of breaking and entering over a one-year period really surprise you?"

Sources: International Maritime Organization, "Reports on Acts of Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships - Annual Report, 2005"; Mark Ray; Patti Seery; Chris Schaefer.

Editor's note [Bianca Hein]: At this writing Capt. Chris Schaefer was in Singapore. To answer his request, and for the readers' own interest, the current crime figures available from the Singapore Statistics Board for 2005 are:

Total population: 3,553,000
Total crime cases: 36,704
Per 100,000 ratio: From theft to murder 1,034 incidents per 100,000
Source: http://www.spf.gov.sg/statistics/crimesituation/ stats2005_overview.htm