MOGADISHU, Somalia — Paul and Rachel Chandler, a retired British couple who sailed to exotic locales aboard their 38-foot yacht, said in one of their last cheery messages they would likely be “out of touch for some time.”
After disappearing for a week, a somber Paul Chandler is back in contact, saying by telephone Thursday that he and his wife are being held captive by gun-toting pirates who stripped their vessel of everything of value.
Despite the presence of warships and aircraft from more than a half-dozen nations, the pirates prowl the Indian Ocean off Somalia seemingly at will, pouncing on pleasure craft, fishing vessels and huge cargo ships. More than 190 crew members from eight ships are being held. The latest seizure Thursday was of a Thai fishing vessel carrying 21 Russians, two Filipinos and two Ghanians, the Seychelles coast guard said.
Chandler told Britain’s ITV News in a phone call that he and his wife were being held aboard a container ship anchored a mile from the Somali coast. They apparently had been briefly taken ashore.
At a European Union summit in Brussels, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown appealed for the couple’s release. Foreign Secretary David Miliband pledged that Britain would use “all the mechanisms at our disposal” to secure their safe return.
Chandler told ITV the pirates crept aboard his yacht at night while he was asleep.
“They kept asking for money and took everything of value on the boat,” Chandler, 59, said before the phone connection was abruptly broken off.
The British navy found the yacht — empty — in international waters earlier Thursday. Warships had been searching for the Lynn Rival since it sent out a distress signal Oct. 23.
Chandler later told the BBC in a phone interview that he is treated well by his captors.
“We are well and being looked after OK,” Chandler said. “Food is OK.”
He did not appear to be able to speak freely.
A pirate spokesman who identified himself as Abdinor said the bandits will negotiate a ransom for the couple.
“We do expect a ransom demand,” Rachel Chandler’s brother, Stephen Collett, told the BBC. “The problem is they are not rich people. Most of the money is tied up with their yacht and other communications equipment, which is on board the yacht.”
Paul Chandler has been identified in the British media as a retired construction-site manager, while Rachel, 55, is described as an economist. The couple, married for 28 years, took early retirement about three years ago and have spent six-month spells at sea. They have sailed to the Greek islands, Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Oman, Yemen, India, the Maldives and the Seychelles, chronicling their voyage on a blog.
The Chandlers were aware they had been sailing through pirate territory, according to their blog entries.
Piracy expert Nick Davies of the Merchant Maritime Warfare Center said the couple should have known better.
“They sailed into the lion’s den, and they did it knowingly, and they should be sternly told they have created an international scenario that was entirely avoidable,” Davies said.
