For more than a century, Bank Line, a British shipping company, ran an around the world service. And, for a little over a year, I had been expecting to join the Boularibank this October to spend the following four months travelling from Europe via the Panama Canal to the South Pacific and back to Europe by way of Suez.
In late April, however, pirates in the Gulf of Aden attacked the ship. Guns were fired and a rocket grenade exploded over the bridge, but, thankfully, there were no casualties. The captain’s expert manoeuvring and heavy wood thrown from the main deck deterred the pirates in their small motorboats and they departed for easier pickings.
Although a friend, a former ship’s captain, told me of the incident, I commenced this blog in May as there was no indication the service would be cancelled. But, in mid-June, it was. The attack, a slump in cargoes and the age of Boularibank and her three sisters (they were more than twenty-five years old) likely all played a part in bringing a truly historic trading route to an end. There will be other ships, but they won’t follow the same route and they won’t take passengers.
I hope that this sequence of postings will, in another form, eventually be continued.
In late April, however, pirates in the Gulf of Aden attacked the ship. Guns were fired and a rocket grenade exploded over the bridge, but, thankfully, there were no casualties. The captain’s expert manoeuvring and heavy wood thrown from the main deck deterred the pirates in their small motorboats and they departed for easier pickings.
Although a friend, a former ship’s captain, told me of the incident, I commenced this blog in May as there was no indication the service would be cancelled. But, in mid-June, it was. The attack, a slump in cargoes and the age of Boularibank and her three sisters (they were more than twenty-five years old) likely all played a part in bringing a truly historic trading route to an end. There will be other ships, but they won’t follow the same route and they won’t take passengers.
I hope that this sequence of postings will, in another form, eventually be continued.
(A note added in January, 2010: The Boularibank's captain, Peter Stapleton, has been awarded the British Merchant Navy Medal for saving his ship, crew and passengers.)
