FAMILY’S PIRATE ORDEAL
AN Australian family’s dream trip sailing around the world turned into a nightmare when they were attacked by pirates.
Louise Turner, husband Lachin and their two young children were saved only by the lucky arrival of a Japanese warship.
“We were essentially sitting ducks,” Ms Turner said of the moment the family spied a pirate skiff zeroing in on their catamaran AraKai in the Gulf of Aden, off Yemen.
“We were at the wrong place at the wrong time. We were completely vulnerable.”
More pirate skiffs soon arrived, targeting the family with well-orchestrated manoeuvres — passing close by and across their bow to scope out their prey while trying to shepherd them away from any other vessels.
Terrified for their safety, particularly their children Siara, 11, and Kai, 4, Ms Turner made a frantic mayday call, saying they were under “imminent pirate attack”.
Their mayday was picked up by a container vessel and passed on to coalition warships patrolling the International Recommended Transit Corridor because of the large number of pirate attacks in the area.
Ms Turner, 44, who skippered the catamaran while her husband, 48, manned the engines, said the pirates “looked eerily focused as they completed their reconnaissance” before following in wait, half a nautical mile to port.
“Effectively they were shepherding us away from the closest vessel that could assist us,” Ms Turner said.
Running low on fuel as they tried to avoid the pirates, the family were relieved to hear a radio message advising them a helicopter from a Japanese warship was on its way.
While the helicopter’s presence only prompted the pirates to move in closer, a Japanese naval plane also arrived and the family was advised to change course to meet up with the warship.
“For the next four hours we were stalked,” Ms Turner said.
After hours of cat and mouse, as the Japanese plane kept tabs on the pirate skiffs lurking just out of the family’s sight but on a parallel course, their worst fears were realised — the radio crackled into life with a warning: “Three skiffs on fast approach.”
“This was it for us,” Ms Turner said,
“Attack imminent. Simply put, we could not possibly pre- vent them boarding us.
“But fate intervened, and we believe it was only by minutes that the appearance of two warships on the horizon thwarted the attack.”
The skiffs, thankfully, pulled away.
One of those warships, a Pakistani naval vessel, gave the family more fuel and kept them under close escort for the rest of the voyage to Djibouti.
“We are incredibly lucky that we were not attacked, however, the threat was all too real,” Ms Turner said, with the Cairns family now safely continuing their journey after the February attack.
“This has been a sobering and frightening experience.”