BWR 2009/2011
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BWR 2009/2011
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THE DEMISE OF THE BLUE WATER RALLY The official BWR 2009/2011 route was slightly modified to include an official stopover in Cochin, India, replacing the previous optional stop in the Maldives. In view of the growing piracy threat in the Arabic Gulf, the
BWR management decided to add an unplanned stop in Mumbay, from where the yachts
were going to head for Salalah not by the rhumb-line, but rather following the
Indian and Pakistani coastline, where no attacks had been recorded. Apart from few minor problems with fishing nets and refueling needs, all yachts arrived safely in Salalah, only to be welcomed by the horrible news of the kidnapping and subsequent killing of the crew of "Quest", well known to the Rally people because the yacht had sailed with the Rally from Phucket to Mumbay. We will probably never know why the skipper of "Quest" decided to quit the Rally and head to Salalah on his own and on the dangerous direct route, maybe he had grown unhappy of having to sail on a longer route, in a tight group with slower boats, or maybe he was disappointed by the kind of security offered by the Rally (a set of tactics, not armed protection or anything of that sort), fact is that the yacht went straight into the pirates' arms with dire consequences. Few days after, the news of another yacht hijacking, just offshore Salalah. While the Vasco da Gama Rally continued towards Aden and later the Red Sea without problems, almost all the BWR skippers, saddened, scared and also discouraged by the Coalition representatives, decided not to go on (with the exception of just one yacht, which went through safely). Too late to go back (and then, where to?), the skippers decided to organise themselves to negotiate the shipment of the yachts by ship to Marmaris, Turkey. After several postponements and delays, which forced the crews to spend a long time in Oman, the ship finally came, and the yachts ended up safely in Turkey. In the meantime the BWR Company announced that it was ceasing trading, also in light of very few bookings for the 2011/2013 Rally. WHAT NOW? Some time after these events, the competing World-ARC organisation announced that their Rally (which does not go through the Gulf of Aden, but around the stormy Cape of Good Hope) will become an annual event, thus giving the participants more flexibility in their schedules, possibly jumping from one Rally to the next. On the old BWR website, a brief announcement promises a new event, "avoiding the pirate threat and not sailing around the dangerous Cape of Good Hope". I wonder how they will achieve that...
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Webmaster: Gianfranco Balducci - email: gfbalduc@tin.it Last Update: 21/09/2014
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