Not exactly a "complete" list.... (especially in the Bahamas)

It failed to mention the 50' sportfish from Miami that was hijacked and
the Captain aimed it at Cat Cay at full blast and jumped off the bridge
and swam to Gun Cay while the boat crashed into North Cat and police
came and caught the two hijackers....

Also there are always several posters in the customs office about recent
boat thefts.

If you are 100% confident in your abilty to use a firearm and have
practice on a moving vessel (different from a range) and can secure it
from thieves and minors then it may be a good idea to have one... .if
not, it will probably be used on you if you ever have the misfortune to
need it.

In 20 years of cruising, I have always had one aboard but only once did
I send someone below to grab it (came across a drug boat during a
pickup...thought it would be good to have it on the bridge) but luckily
have never had to even chamber a round or hold it up to scare anyone off.




Lee Huddleston wrote:
On Thu, 1 Jan 2004 08:30:14 -0500, "Bruce"
wrote:


He is every report of problems in the Caribbean in the last several years
http://www.caribcruisers.com/index.html



Bruce,

Looking at the list of incidents in the Caribbean is instructive.
Besides the numerous thefts or attempted thefts of dinks, there seems
to be an unusual number of boardings while people are asleep on the
boat. In these and the dink stealing instances, guns would be
useless. For the boardings some kind of intruder alarm would seem to
be the most valuable addition to a boat.

Even for those examples when people were robbed at gun point, having a
gun on board would probably not have been helpful. The victim was
usually off the boat and/or was surprised by the robber. If fact, as
I read the list, I could only detect a very few times when I gun on
board might have made the difference. I did not see a single time
when a boat load of armed men approached a boat directly in such a way
that the occupants would have the warning or time to get their gun.
Did I miss something?

Lee Huddleston
s/v Truelove