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Barry and Rod Nowlin both knew that this third vessel, a 37-foot sloop, couldn't keep pace with their larger boats. They hooked up with another craft, a well-captained 37-foot Catalina, and on March 7, 2005, all four left on the treacherous, 600-mile trek through the Gulf of Aden. Their plan was to run all day, making good time; then, under cover of darkness—with radios and lights turned off—they would transit Pirate Alley, ending at the harbor in Aden, Yemen.
At least, that was the plan. The Californian's boat quickly broke down, and he started using the radio for repair advice. "All night long we were on the radio, trying to diagnose his problems," says Barry.
Finally, at dawn on March 8, the two smaller vessels stayed behind to regroup, leaving Mahdi and Gandalf to continue on by themselves.
Pirate Alley
They were headed into Pirate Alley with 14 hours of advance radio emergency calls alerting everyone within range. Worse still, they would have to cross it in broad daylight. At 9 a.m. that day, roughly 30 miles off the coast of Al Mukalla, Yemen, two long, narrow powerboats—pushed full-bore by large outboard motors—approached Mahdi and Gandalf from behind, then passed them.
Undeterred, Mahdi and Gandalf kept sailing. Fifteen miles later, the boats returned, this time coming at the sailboats across their bows. "That's when I knew they were fixing our course," Barry says. "We all realized then, we were in trouble."
As quickly as they arrived, the motorboats were gone. Eight hours later, after sailing on deserted seas, Martini spotted something in the distance. Two new, different boats—larger vessels with inboard motors—hiding in the slick glare of the sun.
"These two boats came at us, shooting," says Martini. "One came down our starboard side; the other came down Mahdi's port side. They had these six-foot-tall spars rising from their gunwales. Wrapped around the spars was this orange tarp, so we couldn't see how many people were inside each boat. They'd pop up and shoot; then they’d duck back down behind the tarp."
As bullets ripped through Gandalf's Plexiglas windows, shattered metal rail stanchions and passed clean through its 12-inch-thick Sitka spruce mast, Martini ducked belowdecks, while Barry dove behind the wheel, putting as much steel hull as possible between himself and the pirates. He wasn't going to make it easy for them to kill him. Glancing over to Mahdi, Barry saw that Becky Nowlin was driving—Rod was strangely missing—and as the second pirate boat roared closer, they were firing at Becky, who was also hiding for her life behind the wheel.
Then, carrying the 12-gauge shotgun he kept for emergencies, Rod Nowlin appeared in the companionway on Mahdi—just in time for a bullet to whiz past his head. Wheeling around, he saw a hand reaching over the orange tarp of the second boat firing an AK-47 at him. Bullets shattered the Mahdi's selfsteering mechanism, raining hot shards of stainless steel on Rod and Becky, burning their legs.
Rod Nowlin lifted his weapon to fire back, but found himself face-to-face with another pirate. This one was no more than 17 years old.
"He was a young kid, on a boat filled with men," Nowlin says. "And I was looking at him, right in the eye, and I couldn't shoot him." Nowlin motioned with the shotgun for him to get down. The kid ducked and Nowlin fired into the boat, responding to the spray of AK-47 rounds.
On Gandalf, the pirate boat that had attacked them was finally past—but it wasn't leaving. Instead, it made a U-turn, preparing a second assault. For the first time, Martini and Barry understood that the tall staves rising from the boat’s gunwales were rudimentary supports, handholds meant to steady the pirates for one reason.
"They planned to board us," says Barry. "They were coming back and shooting." The sound of a bullet barely missing him confirmed something Barry already knew. He and Martini were going to die unless he did something. But there was nowhere to go. They couldn't hide, and they certainly couldn't outrun the pirate speedboats. Barry was left with one option. "I yelled down to Carol, 'Find something to hold on to. I'm gonna ram the bastards.'"
With the mainsail up and the propeller going full-throttle, Barry whipped the wheel, turning Gandalf on a dime. He headed straight for the pirates, slowing only after ramming them square amidships.
That's when the couple got their first good look at their attackers. "As we hit, I saw four pirates aboard, and their eyes got really big—just huge. They weren't used to boats doing business this way," Barry says. "When our bow hit them, their boat rolled toward us; the side closest to us went under our bow, so their decks rolled up exposed. They were rolling over."
The sailboat kept driving forward, into the pirate boat's interior decking. Barry jammed the engine in reverse to free himself. But he wasn't going anywhere. The pirate boat was stuck on Gandalf's bow.
As Barry tried to knock the first pirate boat off, the second pirate boat—now repelled from Mahdi by Rod Nowlin's shotgun blasts—had also swung around to attack Barry and Martini, sneaking up on the distracted and impaired Gandalf from astern. The second vessel drew upon the unsuspecting Barry—with a pair of armed pirates standing on its bow ready to board.
"I was belowdecks, using the radio [to call for help]," Martini says. "And all of a sudden, behind Jay, I saw these two heads."
There was one final crack of gunfire—and they were gone. Rod Nowlin had shot back at them. "The only pirate I didn't shoot, it turns out, was the kid I saw first," says Nowlin. "I don't know what happened to him."
Within seconds, both pirate vessels were disappearing astern as the two sailboats beat a hasty route northwest. "I think the sea finally shook the first pirate boat off our bow," says Barry.
When it was over, Rod Nowlin had fired six times. Both pirate boats were dead in the water, severely damaged.
A day later, Gandalf and Mahdi both limped into the harbor at Aden, Yemen. On Gandalf, bullets had pierced the boat in 14 places, and the ramming had scraped a large hole from the smooth green paint of the boat's bow. "Those pirates tore up old Gandalf pretty good," Barry says.
Martini and Barry hope that local governments will learn from their experience and take concrete actions.
"We've tried to get authorities in the area to give recreational sailors more security," says Barry. "Maybe they could escort sailboats through the area. But, so far, they've stayed deaf to us." Here's one more reason to do something. Some believe that certain pirates are actually members of Al Qaeda trolling for hostages.
And what of the two smaller boats, especially the one with all the mechanical problems, that Gandalf and Mahdi left behind?
Carol Martini laughs. "They got through Pirate Alley without incident," she says. "Go figure!"
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