They set sail for Zanzibar with their three-year-old child to escape the evils of consumer society, determined that the pirates who operate off the African coast would not deter them from the voyage of a lifetime. But the dream nourished by Chloé and Florent Lemaçon was shattered as they and their son, Colin, fell into the hands of Somali pirates.
The hijacking is the latest in a spate of attacks in the region. In France, officials expressed fury over the couple’s failure to avoid waters in which 15 crews were taken hostage last month alone.
Eric Chevallier, the French Foreign Ministry spokesman, said that the Lemaçons, from Vannes, Brittany, were “repeatedly warned of the risks they were facing by sailing off the Somali coast. It is difficult to understand why these warnings were not heeded.”
Mr and Mrs Lemaçon, with their son and two passengers, are almost certainly heading for the lawless Somali coastal region of Puntland after their 12.5m (41ft) boat, the Tanit, was seized on Saturday.
French authorities are preparing to receive a ransom demand, but may be planning the sort of commando operation that has liberated two other French yachts detained by Somali gangs over the past year. “We know where they are,” said Bernard Kouchner, the French Foreign Minister.
The Lemaçons were met in mid-ocean last month by the Floréal, a French frigate participating in a European Union anti-piracy operation in the Gulf of Aden, according to the French Navy. It said that officers had “strongly advised” them against continuing their voyage to Zanzibar, the Indian Ocean archipelago.
In an entry on their blog, however, the couple said that they had merely been told to keep away from commercial shipping routes.
Mr Lemaçon’s father, Francis, defended the couple. “They are confirmed sailors and definitely not irresponsible,” he said. “They followed the advice they were given, took the least dangerous route and were in permanent contact with French forces.”
He suggested that the hijackers were unlikely to receive a big ransom for his son and daughter-in-law. “They’re not tourists on a luxury yacht but adventurers on an old boat.”
Mr Lemaçon gave up his job as an engineer and his wife hers as a sales representative to restore the 33-year-old Tanit before setting sail last year.
“We want to flee the consumer society and its routine,” Mr Lemaçon told the newspaper Ouest France. “We don’t want our child to receive the sort of education that the Government is concocting for us. We have got rid of the television and everything that seemed superfluous to concentrate on what is essential.”
Asked about the danger of being intercepted by pirates, he said: “The risk exists but it is minimal for a boat like ours.”
Three months ago, in the Suez Canal, they met Jean-Yves and Bernadette Delanne, a French couple taken hostage by Somali pirates before being freed by French special forces in September. “The danger . . . has doubtless grown over the course of the past few months,” the Lemaçons wrote in their blog. “But the ocean remains vast. The pirates must not destroy our dream.”
They wrote that they had taken two friends, also from Vannes, on board to help them to get past Somalia. The friends’ names had not been disclosed last night.
The Tanit is one of five vessels attacked by Somali gangs since Saturday. Another is the British-owned Malaspina Castle, a 32,000-tonne cargo ship with a crew of 24 from Bulgaria, Russia, Ukraine and the Philippines. Somali pirates attacked 111 ships and earned an estimated $30 million in ransom payments last year, according to the International Maritime Bureau.
Blogs from the wild waters
“It is really very difficult in our society to reverse away in the area of consumerism. We simply want to show Colin that we don’t need all that (Christmas catalogues, magic cereals, Spider-Man) to be happy”
“Of course there are the pirates who, like poachers and other fraudsters, intervene in these regions where wealth circulates. As long as we are on these routes, we will risk crossing them. The only explanation we can give you is that we think the risk is minimal”
“The liberation of the Delannes took place in a bloodbath, with a pirate killed before their eyes. But at the same time they never felt in danger because these Somalis don’t want to take their lives. They want money above all . . . The pirates must not destroy our dream”
“We are advancing day and night with our lights out having signalled our presence to the French forces in Djibouti”
“We are in the middle of the piracy zone but so far there is nothing to report. The Floréal advises us to stay away from commercial shipping routes . . . At the end of the day, it’s quite pleasant, this French meeting in the middle of the sea far from home.”
Have your say
The whole world knows that there is an ongoing "Piracy" situation in that area. Why do people insist on going into that zone?? How crazy can they get???
Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6054848.ece
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