Captured yacht couple’s fate is in the balance

Somali pirates were today expected to issue a ransom demand for the British couple, Paul and Rachel Chandler, taken hostage after their yacht was captured in the Indian Ocean. But as the couple find themselves the target of criticism for sailing into trouble, the question of who will pay such a ransom remains a mystery. The British government has a strict policy not to do so, while the Chandlers are not rich, their yacht, Lynn Rival, being their major asset.

The couple from Tunbridge Wells in Kent, who are 59 and 55, have been allowed to call UK media twice since their capture. On Thursday they were able to confirm that they are being treated and fed reasonably well. This morning, one of the pirates told a BBC correspondent that a ransom demand could be made later today. Another pirate said the Chandlers, currently on the mainland, would be moved off-shore again as it would be "safer" at sea.

The search for the Chandlers began on Friday, October 23, after they sent a distress signal while sailing from the Seychelles to Tanzania. Six days later, a Royal Navy ship found their empty yacht, the Lynn Rival, in international waters.

Much of the public reaction to the hijack has been unsympathetic, with anonymous posters to Sky News and This Is London websites dismissing the couple as "stupid and reckless", having "no common sense at all". There is anger that they have caused an expensive, and potentially dangerous, search operation.

More heavyweight sources have also been critical. Nick Davis, an expert from the Merchant Maritime Warfare Centre in the UK, told the Associated Press the Chandlers "sailed into the lion's den and they did it knowingly and they should be sternly told they have created an international scenario that was entirely avoidable". ITV has reported that the manager of a Seychelles yacht club claims he warned the couple not to make the journey.

Rachel Chandler's brother, Stephen Collett, said the couple were "well aware of the risks they were taking", and on their own blog, the Chandlers wrote in 2008 of the "pirate problem" delaying other planned voyages. More recently, as they set off on their trip, they made it clear they knew one danger would be a lack of satellite phone coverage.

But are the Chandlers really the architects of their own misfortune? Somali piracy has been in the headlines in recent years, but while there have been a few private yachts attacked, it has almost always been much larger ships - vast cargo ships and supertankers - that have been targeted.

Also, the majority of attacks have taken place further north than the scene of the Chandler hijack. According to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), in the first three-quarters of 2009, 100 Somali pirate attacks were carried out in the the Gulf of Aden – about one third of the global tally. Further south in the Indian Ocean where the Chandlers were sailing, there was only one reported attack.

Tanzanian waters, where the Chandlers were headed, accounted for five attacks, while just to the north, off the coast of Somalia, there were 47.

The presence of a multi-national naval force in the Gulf of Aden has this year has led to a reduction in successful pirate attacks and may have begun to push the pirates south towards the Seychelles. As the Chandlers were being taken hostage, a Panama-flagged cargo vessel, the MV Al Khaliq, was also taken nearby.

So the couple may not have seen themselves as likely targets, and may have assumed they were not heading into a hotspot. They may also have heard from another source that bad weather had lessened the danger. In June, they wrote on their blog: "The seas around the Seychelles are now too rough for the pirates to operate in."

But while private yachts are not a common target, it does happen and it doesn't always end well. In March this year, after a French yacht, the Tanit, was hijacked, its owner Florent Lemacon lost his life in the ensuing rescue attempt by French special forces. It is not clear who shot him, but it may well have been 'friendly fire'.

His wife and young son survived, and were subjected to intense, sometimes hurtful, criticism in the French media for actions branded as reckless. In fact they had taken notice of warnings by the French navy and altered their course to skirt the danger zone.

The Lemacons were unlucky: a crew of pirates had chased a cargo ship far into international waters the preceding day - in fact, if they had not run into the Tanit, they would not have had enough fuel to make it back to the Somali coast.

Chloe Lemacon, Florent's widow, offered this explanation of their actions not long before the hijack took place: "As long as we are on these routes, we risk coming across [pirates]. The only explanation that we can honestly give without entering into long and complicated arguments is that we think the risk is minimal compared to all the other risks of daily life."

As for the Chandlers, their best hope is that the Royal Navy, which takes piracy seriously, might be allowed to mount a Special Boat Services operation to save them. As one security expert said today, "They might treat it as a good opportunity for a real-life training exercise."

What is certain is that the British government won't pay a ransom and the Chandlers' don't have the resources and back-up of a cargo ship owner. Frank Gardner, the BBC's security correspondent, said: "There is no big international shipping company that is going to say, 'We are going to get these people out because they are our employees and we will dip into the insurance for this'." ·