So yesterday I posted a guest blog about piracy and just about the same time I did, a young man who is attempting an amazing solo circumnavigation was dealing with some potential piracy of his own.

American Zac Sunderland's quest to be the youngest sailor to attempt a solo
global circumnavigation began June 14th with his departure from Los Angeles,
CA onboard an Islander 36. Nearly four months later, his trip has gone
essentially as planned, but with all the reports of piracy in the countries
bordering the Indian Ocean, Zac has now gotten a taste of this sad reality.

“The wind stayed steady all through the night and I was making good
progress. The swell picked up to about 8 feet and I was back to the climbing up and surfing down motion. Around 11:30am I was sitting in the cockpit when I saw a boat about 4 miles away.

I took a look at my radar screen and didn't see anything. I took another look at the boat. We were heading parallel to each other and would pass well clear of each other. I went down below and switched on the VHF radio and tried to hail them on Channel 16 with no luck.

I went below and got my camera and got some footage of them but it was still hard to make out who or what they were because they were still about miles off. I was sitting in the cockpit watching them and suddenly they changed course.

At this new angle we would hit. I moved the autopilot over a few
degrees to get out of their path. As I did they changed course dead for me again. So I'm thinking, ‘I've got a ship that doesn't show up on radar with no flags and no radio response, deliberately heading straight for me 150 miles off the coast of Indonesia, a place notorious for piracy.’” 

Full
post: http://www.zacsunderland.com/blog/2008/10/update.html