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From: B. K. Myers III (no email)
Date: Thu Dec 06 2001 - 23:40:11 EST
This is slightly off-topic for this mailing list, but Peter Blake was kind
of a hero to me and many other sailors.
Sailing Great Peter Blake Killed by Pirates
Peter Blake, pictured after winning the America's Cup at the San Diego Yacht
Club, in 1995, was murdered by pirates in Brazil. (AFP File Photo)
By Angus Phillips
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 7, 2001; Page D1
Sir Peter Blake of New Zealand, who won the top two prizes in global
yachting before turning his energies to environmental activism, was shot
dead Wednesday night by robbers who boarded his boat anchored near the mouth
of the Amazon River in Brazil.
Alan Sefton, spokesman for Blake Expeditions, said seven or eight masked,
armed men sneaked up silently in a dugout bongo, a local canoe, and came
over the side of Blake's 120-foot sailboat with guns drawn near the
equatorial city of Macapa at about 10:15 Wednesday night.
Sefton said most of the 10-member crew were relaxing on deck and were taken
by surprise as the boat lay at anchor. Blake was below decks but apparently
heard a noise and "came up on the charge to protect his boat and crew." He
was shot twice, Sefton said. Efforts to resuscitate the 6-foot-5 skipper
were unsuccessful.
Blake, 53, swept all five legs of the Whitbread 'Round-the-World Race II in
1989, then handed Dennis Conner a 5-0 drubbing to give his sailing-mad
country its first America's Cup in 1995 as skipper of Team New Zealand. He
was named a Knight of the British Empire for the Cup win.
Between those feats he also set a world record for nonstop circumnavigation
under sail in 1994 aboard the catamaran Enza, circling the globe with a
small crew in just over 74 days. That record since has been surpassed.
After winning the Cup, Blake reluctantly took a shoreside job organizing New
Zealand's successful Cup defense in 2000. Immediately afterward he set off
on a mission closer to his heart, roaming the world in his aluminum sailboat
Seamaster as head of Blake Expeditions. His aim was to reignite interest in
the sea and its environmental problems, with particular attention to global
warming.
He had already completed a three-month exploration of Antarctica and a
two-month voyage up the Amazon River and the Rio Negro in Brazil when his
boat and crew were attacked. Two other crewmen were injured in the melee.
Geoff Bullock was grazed in the back by a bullet and Roger Moore was
pistol-whipped. Both were treated at a local hospital and released. The
bandits made off with an inflatable boat and outboard motor and some watches
and cameras, Sefton said.
The news hit New Zealand hard. "It's shock and disbelief," said Tom
Schnackenberg, who took over as Team New Zealand's syndicate chief when
Blake left. "Peter is an icon, of course. He sort of seemed invincible, and
then it happened in such a trivial and senseless way."
Flags in Auckland were flying at half-staff, said Schnackenberg, and the Cup
team halted operations and welcomed the public and rival sailors into their
compound in the Viaduct Basin where America's Cup teams store their boats.
Acts of piracy are not uncommon in the South American tropics, said Sefton.
"We talked with the local police and they said it had all the hallmarks of a
run-of-the-mill robbery. We knew this sort of thing happened and the crew
were vigilant, but they [the pirates] came out of the black of night with
guns drawn."
Seamaster was anchored off Macapa awaiting customs clearance to depart
Brazilian waters. She was bound next for the Orinoco River in Venezuela to
pick up some members of the crew who were bushwhacking across the jungle as
part of the exploration.
The expedition's exploits were reported daily on the Web site
www.Blakexpeditions.com, which had about 5,000 regular readers, Sefton said.
Video productions of both the Antarctic and Amazon explorations were in the
works. The crew hoped to traverse the Northwest Passage in the Arctic next
summer.
Blake's wife, Pippa, had been on the boat until last weekend when she flew
home to England to be with the couple's children, Sara Jane, 18, and James,
14.
The shaggy-haired Blake was revered among offshore sailors for his
relentless determination and leadership skills.
He won the Whitbread 'Round-the-World Race on his fifth try and was the only
sailor to race in all of the first five Whitbreads. His nonstop
circumnavigation on Enza was foiled the first time when one of the
catamaran's bows broke off in a storm off Cape Town; he limped back to
Africa, shipped the craft to England, lengthened and rebuilt it and
succeeded on the second try.
He was first called in to help Team New Zealand's America's Cup efforts in
1992, when the bid by Sir Michael Fay fell short, then organized and ran his
own low-budget campaign for the 1995 regatta, winning every race but one
over a five-month period.
"His determination and perseverance set him apart," said Schnackenberg, who
sailed aboard Team New Zealand in 1995 with Blake. "He basically just kept
going at it, worrying the job till he got it done."
New Zealand's governor general, Cath Tizard, compared Blake to Sir Edmund
Hillary after the Cup win. "Sir Edmund kept building on his legacy after
climbing Everest and Peter was headed the same way with Blake Expeditions,"
said Schnackenberg. "It's not an unreasonable comparison."
Special correspondent Nadejda Marcus contributed to this report from Brazil.
© 2001 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2360-2001Dec6.html
B. K. Myers III
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