Five Pirated Crews that Didn’t Fare as Well as the Americans

Yesterday the American crew of the container ship Maersk Alabama successfully fought back against Somali pirates attempting to seize the vessel. The ship’s captain was kidnapped during the fighting and now the FBI is helping negotiate his release.

For Esquire.com, I surveyed five pirated crews who didn’t fare nearly so well, including:

Ekawat Nava 5, 16 souls (November 2008)

This small Thai trawler was carrying fishing supplies to Yemen when pirates sneaked up. After just a few hours of captivity, the captured crew perhaps felt a rush of hope as the lights of an Indian warship, Tabar, appeared in the night sky. But then something went horribly wrong. According to the Indian navy, a pirate shot at the warship. “Tabar retaliated in self-defense and opened fire on the mother vessel,” the navy reported, referring to pirates’ tactic of using trawlers as “motherships” for the smaller skiffs. Ekawat Nava 5 went down in flames, pictured, taking fifteen of her crew. The Indian navy insisted that the trawler matched the description of a known pirate ship.

(Photo: Indian navy)