![]() ![]() ![]() “They tried to intercept our course, but we turned away from them,” Hawkins says. Luckily for the crew of the Sheila McDevitt, they finally lost sight of the suspicious boat a couple of hours later. “We were hearing radio communications between what appeared to be the vessel pursuing us and another in some local dialect that we did not understand,” Hawkins says. “We were well aware of similar events that had occurred with other vessels in that area, and while it is always a bit disconcerting when something you read actually happens to you, I believe our reaction was appropriate.” As the suspicious fishing boat continued to follow his ship, Hawkins briefly thought it was attempting to herd the Sheila McDevitt into a region where other pirates were waiting. “We were not necessarily surprised, but we were a bit shaken to realize that we were being pursued,” Hawkins says. “So we didn’t stop.” As Hawkins and his crew cut through the moderately calm seas, the 15-meter (50-foot) fishing vessel, which a few minutes earlier had cited engine difficulties, began quickly tailing the Sheila McDevitt. “We had been hearing about it in reports over the last year or so that that was one of their techniques that they used to get us to stop,” Hawkins says. It was 2006, and about 10 men on a suspicious-looking boat were trying to flag down the Sheila McDevitt 170 kilometers (105 miles) off shore, saying they were having engine problems. John Hawkins and his crew on the cargo ship Sheila McDevitt had their first encounter with pirates. ![]() Far off the coast of Somalia, in the Indian Ocean, Capt. ![]()
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