Anchor Rescue

As pirate stories go, this is a rather docile yarn: no cutlasses brandished, not a parrot in sight and not a boat boarded – but it came awfully close.

A FOULED ANCHOR can ruin your day and perhaps cost you your ground tackle. Designed to help you easily retrieve your anchor, Anchor Rescue is a two-part system. One part stays on the anchor at all times and the other is sent down to the anchor only when it becomes fouled. Check out the video on www. anchorrescue.com to see how it works. Garhauer Marine NZ 09 402 6231 sales@garhauer.co.nz www.garhauermarinehardware.co.nz

After more than 100,000 ocean miles, Graeme Kendall has often been asked about pirates. His stock reply: “I’ve never seen a pirate and I don’t think they exist.”

After his recent delivery from Phuket, Thailand to Port Vila, Vanuatu, he might have a different reply to the pirate question. Perhaps: “Well, I’ve seen intimidating fishermen…”

The difference between a pirate and an intimidating fisherman? About two metres – that’s how close the fishermen came to boarding.

The pirate-attack-that-wasn’t occurred 400 miles off the coast of Malaysia in May this year. Kendall was skipper with two young crew members, Sam Dewes, 18, and Harry Tapsell, 20, were delivering a Leopard 38 sailing catamaran from Phuket, Thailand to Port Vila, Vanuatu. The cat was powered by two Yanmar 30hp engines, giving it a top speed of about 8 knots – not great for outrunning pirates on the high seas.

From Phuket, they had sailed south through the straits of Malacca, across the top of Borneo and down its south-east coast into the Celebes Sea and Sulu Sea.

As they sailed down the east coast of Malaysia, they passed through fishing fleets. About every 20 miles there was a mothership of about 100ft with a fleet of up to a dozen, whitepainted canoe-like boats. Kendall estimated they were between 3m and 4m long, built in timber or fibreglass. The solo skippers helmed standing, with a tiller. They returned to their mother ships regularly, presumably for lunch, to offload their catch and refuel, and to shelter at night.

“These little boats zap along quite fast,” says Kendall. He