Pirates! Sailing champion slain by pirates on Amazon
New Zealander was to begin 2-month expedition to study region's ecology
By Scott Gold
The Los Angeles Times
Friday, December 7, 2001
BELEM, Brazil — Sir Peter Blake, a storied yachtsman, adventurer and environmental pioneer, was shot and killed as he tried to fend off a gang of hooded pirates who boarded his research vessel at the mouth of the Amazon River, Brazilian authorities said Thursday.
Blake, a native of Auckland, New Zealand, was 53.
In the United States, Blake's fame was largely restricted to such avid sailing communities as San Diego and the Chesapeake Bay. But internationally — especially in New Zealand, the self-proclaimed Nation of Sailors — Blake achieved the mythical status afforded to the likes of Charles Lindbergh and countryman Sir Edmund Hillary.
His fame peaked when he won consecutive America's Cups, the sport's premier event. Blake was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1995.
Blake, who lived most of the year in England, was "down below" in his 119-foot schooner, Seamaster, waiting to clear customs in the remote Amapa region of Brazil. He was preparing to embark on a two-month expedition, the latest leg of his quest to document the impact of global warming and pollution on the fragile ecology of the Amazon.
About 10:15 p.m. Wednesday local time, as Blake's crew prepared dinner, notorious marauders known as "ratos de agua" — river rats — boarded the Seamaster from an inflatable dinghy.
Blake charged onto the deck firing a .30-6 rifle and struck one pirate in the hand. He was shot twice in the back seconds later, according to Brazil's Federal Police. A bullet pierced Blake's heart, authorities said, and he died almost instantly.
The pirates stole a motor, Canon cameras, lenses and four watches before disappearing into the jungle, cloaked in the dense smoke of nearby encampments. Two members of Blake's crew were wounded but are expected to recover.
Police were working on several leads, a spokesman said.
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who visited Blake in Brazil three weeks ago and spent a weekend aboard his schooner, said she was "absolutely devastated" to learn of his death.
"I am appalled that murderers have taken away Sir Peter's life when he had so much to give through his passion for the waters of the world," she said. "He was an inspiration to all New Zealanders, and we will all feel a tremendous sense of loss."
"He's one of our very few real national heroes," said Mike Munro, a spokesman for the New Zealand prime minister's office.
Born in Auckland and reared in the avid yachting community there, Blake began sailing at age 5 and quickly became an accomplished sailor.
He worked his way into Kiwis' hearts in 1979 by taking a sailing trophy away from Australia. He won the Sidney-to-Hobart yacht race that year and, Munro said, "ever since then it's been upwards and upwards."
Aside from his wins, he also set a world record for nonstop circumnavigation under sail in 1994 aboard the catamaran Enza, circling the globe in just over 74 days.
Blake recently retired from competitive sailing to start an adventure travel company, and to launch a series of expeditions to study ecological problems throughout the world.
On the heels of a three-month study of wildlife at the South Pole, Blake had been in Brazil for the past two months. He was awaiting clearance from customs officials before embarking on another two-month trip, primarily up the Orinoco River in Venezuela, according to a synopsis of the trip provided by a subsidiary of the Swatch Group AG, a sponsor of the expedition.
Blake was scheduled to shove off in coming days, leaving the mouth of the Amazon to catch the trade winds off the northeast coast of Brazil. He was expected to rendezvous with a team already working on the Rio Negro and the Orinoco.
The trip was intended to monitor the impact of global warming and pollution on the region's environment, Swatch said.
"Peter Blake was a bit like a cross between Jimmy Carter and Joe DiMaggio," according to statement issued Thursday by the U.S. Embassy in Wellington, New Zealand. "He was loved by New Zealanders as a great sportsman, in the way Americans loved DiMaggio. But he was also recognized for his services to humanity and to the world in a similar way to Carter."
Many of Blake's friends and sailing colleagues said that despite his accolades and trophies, Blake considered his environmental work to be his most important endeavor.
"He had left behind his many major achievements in sport to dedicate himself to creating greater awareness of the need to take better care of the world," said Alan Sefton, a friend and spokesman for Blake's expedition company.
In the last entry of his log, Blake wrote eloquently of the Amazon and of the pressing need to reveal Amazonia's ecological disasters to the rest of the world.
"The quality of water and the quality of life in all its infinite forms are critical parts of the overall, ongoing health of this planet of ours, not just here in the Amazon, but everywhere," Blake wrote.
". . . The hardest part of any big project is to begin. We have begun. We are under way. We have a passion. We want to make a difference." |
