Last Saturday evening, Nina S. and Mario P.'s dream of a time-out under sail was abruptly shattered: on the evening of 13 July, six armed men attacked the yacht of the couple from Cologne, who had been sailing in blue water for two years.
The Bavaria 46 "Seatramp" was anchored in Bahia Nombre de Dios Bay on the north coast of Panama between Colon and the Kuna Yala archipelago when the crew heard noises on deck. The skipper goes on deck, where two armed men are waiting and force him back into the saloon.
"I only realised afterwards that they must have swum on board because they were wet from head to toe," Mario P. told YACHT online. "Other men came on board in a motorboat."
The strangers hold a gun to the skipper's head. "We tried to make it clear to them that we were prepared to co-operate as long as they left us unharmed," Mario P. continues. "Fortunately, I speak some Spanish, otherwise that wouldn't have worked."
The men ransack the entire ship, finding cash, computers, cameras, hard drives and other valuables that the crew had stowed away in supposedly safe places throughout the ship. "They tore everything apart, even the contents of the fridge, and found everything. We were almost knee-deep in the chaos on board afterwards," recalls Mario P. of the crime spree, which lasted a good hour.
"When they had found everything, two men pushed my girlfriend towards the aft cabin. We thought: Oh no, not that too, and I reminded their leader that he had promised not to hurt us," says Mario P.
The men then actually disembark. They also take the Epirb above the chart table with them, which triggers - presumably accidentally - when they leave the ship.
The MRCC in Bremen then received the emergency call. "Our emergency contact on file was contacted and we later clarified what had happened and that it was not a typical maritime emergency," says Mario P.
That same evening, the couple left the bay and returned to the anchorage at Linton Marina, where they had set off in the morning to sail to the San Blas Islands. Due to a defect in the engine panel, they had spontaneously called at Nombre de Dios Bay and ultimately decided to stay overnight - a decision with serious consequences.
Current information and data on crime against yachtsmen in the Caribbean can be found at Caribbean Safety and Security Net.
