Narco vessel intercepted by sail ship - photo

[Altair]

Narco low profile vessel intercepted by the Ecuadorian Navy's sail training ship Guayas off the coast of Colombia.

Fullsize image: https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/h...t_fullsize.jpg



Previously:

Narco and navy submarine size comparison - photo
Narcosubmarine busted off Spanish coast last week - photo and videos
Narco-submarine captured by U.S. Coast Guard - video and infographic
Cartel jet taking off an airstrip - GIF
Excavator used to smuggle 850 pounds of cocaine - photo and video

[mklotz]

How the devil does a square-rigged sailing ship "intercept" a small craft with three engines?

All the articles about the event that I could find say nothing about how the "interception" was made. However, this one...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/25/ameri...hnk/index.html

indicates the barque capable of a believable ten knots. That narco boat could probably do two or three times that speed and turn quickly, something even the best tall ships don't do.

Did the narco "sailors" stop to make lunch and the monster barque snuck up on them unseen?

Did the barque fire a shot from one of her muzzle loaders across their bow?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[Ed Weldon]

The Equadorian navy is no "pansy" outfit. The have several very modern looking frigates with heilcopter pads and high caliber modern deck guns that would make a big patch of fiberglass floating in the ocean out of that drug runner. My guess is that there was one out of the picture and they decided to take the opportunity for a training exercise.

[mklotz]

The Equadorian navy is no "pansy" outfit. The have several very modern looking frigates with heilcopter pads and high caliber modern deck guns that would make a big patch of fiberglass floating in the ocean out of that drug runner. My guess is that there was one out of the picture and they decided to take the opportunity for a training exercise.

I'm sure the Ecuadorian navy is very professional but all the reports of this incident that I've read on the web indicate "Narco vessel intercepted by sail ship" (bolding mine). No other vessel is ever mentioned. I refuse to believe that a three master can run down a speed boat.

[Frank S]

Maybe everyone is looking at this from the wrong perspective.
What if the drug runners viewed the Navy sailing vessel as an easy target against the Ecuadorian Navy's sail training, thinking it may have little more than green young recruits in training? What better way to boost their bravado and prove their superiority of the seas than to strike a blow against the Navy by taking out a ship full of recruits through an act of piracy? Imagine their surprise when instead of a shipload of squibs, they encounter a complement of Dolphins

[Ed Weldon]

I got to thinking about this and could visualize the drug runners might have decided to give the training ship a close buzz by coming up from behind at speed. So the skipper of the sailing ship, pretty well qualified at handling her, is sailing on a tack and the drug boat is heading toward the lee side on an almost parallel course. He orders a hard turn away from the wind and the drug runner, with a lot of forward momentum cannot avoid a collision, a harmless glancing blow to the sailling ship, but a disabling shock to the speed boat. By the time the drug boat crew recovers from the shock they see themselves facing guns and a well trained crew of what they thought was a harmless sailboat; but in fact was crewed by Equadorian sailers with years of experience dealing with Chinese fishing boats testing their territorial waters.

[mklotz]

I got to thinking about this and could visualize the drug runners might have decided to give the training ship a close buzz by coming up from behind at speed. So the skipper of the sailing ship, pretty well qualified at handling her, is sailing on a tack and the drug boat is heading toward the lee side on an almost parallel course. He orders a hard turn away from the wind and the drug runner, with a lot of forward momentum cannot avoid a collision, a harmless glancing blow to the sailling ship, but a disabling shock to the speed boat. By the time the drug boat crew recovers from the shock they see themselves facing guns and a well trained crew of what they thought was a harmless sailboat; but in fact was crewed by Equadorian sailers with years of experience dealing with Chinese fishing boats testing their territorial waters.

If you were in a speed boat along with a couple of tons of cocaine, would you seriously consider giving another ship a "close buzz"?

[Karl_H]

If you were in a speed boat along with a couple of tons of cocaine, would you seriously consider giving another ship a "close buzz"?

I might consider it if I had a couple ounces of cocaine! A great "hold my beer" moment.

[Jon]

Found a possible answer in a Times article. Third paragraph mentions "suspected engine trouble". Here's an archived version of the article: https://archive.ph/xLRvN

Speaking of which, I have been making great use of the archiving Chrome extension (they used to call these "bookmarklets") available here: https://archive.is/ . Media sites allow the archiving bot to bypass their paywalls. One click on the icon, then another on the captcha, and you get the original article.

Also note how the press struggles with a definition of the craft. This one article refers to it as a submarine, a semi-submersible, and a speedboat.

[mklotz]

Thanks for that; that was what I expected. They managed to intercept a stationary object. Engine failure when you have three of them is quite an accoplishment.

Yeah, a submarine with outboard IC/diesel engines; ditto a semi-submersible. It's a low profile speedboat.