Peter Blake murdered!

I just heard a news flash that Peter Blake's been murdered by pirates. Can this be true?

Here's an old interview with Peter.

http://www.divenewzealand.com/53blake.html

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/more/news/2001/12/06/skipper_shot/

 

I just saw the same thing on the Trade Only email list - sad and also eye opening as a few months ago viewing the world from this safe and secure place I was under the notion that everything was just about to become one homogenous and safe 'global village'. I think we still have a way to go.

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Famed sailor Sir Peter Blake, who headed the New Zealand syndicate that took the America’s Cup away from the U.S. in 1995 and successfully defended it in 2000, has been killed by pirates in the Amazon, the Associated Press reported today.

AP is attributing the report to Blake’s race sponsors in Paris, the Jour J agency.

Blake, who announced his resignation as head of Team New Zealand earlier this year, was leading a voyage to the upper Amazon and Orinoco rivers in South America. The trip, which began in September in Buenos Aires, was organized by Blake’s ocean-exploring organization, blakexpeditions. The goal was to promote public awareness of environmental issues.

The death later was confirmed by Omega, the Swiss watchmaker, which was sponsoring the South American venture.

“It is with deepest regret that Omega learned of the death of Sir Peter Blake, K.B.E.,” Omega said in a statement today from its headquarters in Bienne, Switzerland.

Omega said Blake “was shot and killed by armed intruders who boarded the ‘blakexpeditions’ vessel Seamaster, anchored off Macapa at the mouth of the River Amazon, early this morning (Central European Time).”

Blake apparently died instantly, despite desperate resuscitation efforts by members of the Seamaster crew, the Omega statement said.

Seamaster reportedly was awaiting customs clearance to depart Brazilian waters after a two-month expedition exploring the Amazon and the Rio Negro. The goal of the mission was to “monitor the effects of global warming and pollution on the most environmentally sensitive regions of the world,” Omega said.

The vessel was due to depart Friday for the Orinoco River in Venezuela, to meet and pick up the blakexpeditions jungle team, which had continued the exploration work, crossing from the Rio Negro into the head waters of the Orinoco and down to its mouth in the Caribbean. The group of seven or eight armed and hooded intruders boarded Seamaster at approximately 10:15 p.m. local time.

Blake was fatally wounded and two other members of Seamaster's crew were also hurt — one with a gunshot wound across the back, the other with a blow to the face, Omega said. Both injured men are back aboard Seamaster after receiving hospital treatment. The other seven Seamaster crew members were badly shaken but unharmed.

Brazilian police are investigating, Omega said.

“No words can express our sorrow at this sad loss and at this time our thoughts are with his family in England and his close friends," said Nicolas G. Hayek, chairman and CEO of the Swatch Group, OMEGA's parent company.

"Sir Peter was a very special person to many people around the world — highly regarded because of the man he was, because of everything he had achieved and because of everything he represented," said blakexpeditions spokesman Alan Sefton. "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 in which we live. "

Blake’s team won the Cup in 1995 and successfully defended it last year. He was knighted in 1995 after that first victory.

Blake also was a past winner of the Whitbread Round the World Race (1989) and the 1994 recipient of the Jules Verne Trophy.

He was born Oct. 1, 1948, in Auckland, New Zealand, and is survived by a wife and two children.

http://www.tradeonlytoday.com/Today_s_News/sailing_today_s_news.html

 

Oops, the link Stephen posted is actually a more detailed version of the story.

 

It´s a shame (spelling?).

I can´t understand how someone would do something like it.

The sailing world has lost a very good sailor and a very good person.