Zombie Killers
Here’s a topic that might spark some discussion. After hearing the report of the vessel being boarded, a couple of conversations have arisen among the boaters here about keeping guns on board. To give some background, one of my past hobbies was IPSC pistol shooting. My friends and I would travel to clubs in Canada and the US almost every other weekend to compete during the season. So, although I had numerous guns, I sold them all when we decided to head south. That’s right… any potential burglars reading this should know that there are no guns onboard our vessel.
Burglars beware… although there are no guns onboard, I do have a trained “attack wife!”
Rebecca, popping some rounds off in our back yard. Sorry neighbors.
While in Washington we met a (cool!) senator who, sporting his NRA t-shirt, was obviously pro-gun. When he asked why we had decided not to keep any guns onboard, I told him that our conclusions were that it would just be more trouble than it was worth. For example, I have read that in most places, upon checking into a country, your guns will be taken from you and held until your departure. So, you wouldn’t likely have them with you for much of the time anyway. In addition to that, when in said country, you will likely be moving from anchorage to anchorage, probably downwind. When it comes time to depart from that country, you would then need to sail (upwind?) back to the port you initially cleared into to reclaim your guns. Huge hassle, and that’s only some of the potential problems. There are no doubt others.
Anyway, not having guns onboard, I have often heard (even here) of people keeping a flare gun nearby for self-defense. While I have never shot one of these, I don’t think they would be super accurate, and I do know that I surely wouldn’t want to trip one off inside our boat! But, if you are going to keep a flare gun around for defense, I think you should get the real deal and invest in one of these guys, which I first saw on the Boat Bits blog, one of my favorite sites to check out. 🙂
I’ve been doing my own gun survey down the waterway and so far it seems every American we have met keeps a firearm on board. We haven’t met any Canadians who carry a gun…. yet. I don’t want to spark anger with my off handed comments but but I think as Canadians we are just super trusting and have lived in a country where we just feel safe. On american we met in Georgetown insisted we not go furher without protection. It hadn’t occurred to me that i may need protecting. In that flavor he drug us along to the Big Tuna a restaurant where on Thursday nights for $20.00 you could enter a draw to win one of 2 pistols. I reluctantly purchased a ticket and it was the first time i hopped i wasn’t a winner. This same fellow has a permit to wear a gun at all times and that really freaks my freak. I’m frightened less by thinking some one might board and plunder Close Knit than standing in Harris Tweeter and accidentally pissing some gun carrying person off. Anyway I should end my rant because you have a great following and well now all your new american friends know who we are. Can we have Rebecca as crew now?
Rebecca is MUCH too valuable to lend out!
Alternative:
http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Original-Potato-Cannon/
The ammo would certainly be cheaper, but…
1. Will the rescue helicopter see it?
2. Will the potatoes repel zombies?
Re: 1 Probably not.
Re 2 Maybe the ones that you see that are not really there.
3. Bonus – you do get some spare plumbing parts, a backup BBQ grill igniter and you can always eat your ammo in a pinch. 🙂
Good thinking.
Rescue helicopter?
Why would you want the criminals rescued?..Crab bait I say
Mike, I agree with you about the guns, and I am American. The argument you presented is one which I have always given. Additionally, lets say you had a gun on board and were boarded in the middle of the night in some anchorage in a foreign country. You have to be ready to actually USE that gun if you pull it on someone. So, lets say you shoot an intruder. Chances are he did not come alone, and while his partners will likely beat it quickly there is going to be a serious investigation after you shot or killed someone. What are the chances the “partners” are going to admit to being there to rob you? They are going to say there were there to sell barter or that you invited them aboard, then it will be yours and your crews word against the locals. If you are in some small port or village, chances are the person you shot knows people and officials. I think the chance of a fair trial for the “Rich Yachties from America, or Canada” are not very good, and so you could end up, at the very least, with a multi-year court experience, and some time spent in the local jail, and at the worst, convicted of murder in a foreign country. Thats another reason I will never carry a gun aboard. If someone comes to rob you, give them what they want and send them on their way. Chances are (and statistically it is very very improbable) it will never happen anyway.
THAT would be one of the other (HUGE) potential problems I alluded to in the post.
Btw, who was the senator you met?
I’d rather not say, but he was a cool guy.
When we took our ASA courses, our skipper told us that we should always have two flares to use in case we were boarded.
His advice:
Shoot the first person to board in the chest with the first flare. Shoot the boarding boat with the second one.
Not sure it’s great advice, but his thought process was that the guys boarding will stop to help their burning buddy or their burning boa or boat, and leave you alone. I personally think the advice to give them what they want and let them leave is better advice. In the US, they probably won’t get far.
I agree JP. I’m not so sure I would want to piss off people who are (a) likely in a fast boat and (b) quite possible armed and then try to make a getaway at 5-8 knots.
Without stirring the pot too much here, I’ll just say that if one is going to carry a gun, one needs to be prepared to use it and to face the consequences of using it. If you carry weapons and sail in dangerous places, there is a good chance that those consequences will include the death of someone, on your boat or theirs.
My preference would be (a) stay away from dangerous areas, and (b) if the danger of piracy/robbery/etc. makes it imperative that defences be carried, use non-lethal defensive weapons (ultrasonic, tear gas, etc) instead of deadly ones. I know I couldn’t bring myself to shoot a gun at someone, but there are other options- a water cannon, for example- that I might consider in an extreme situation.
Don’t worry Matt… I posted that to “stir the pot” a bit 🙂
This is a corollary to the 3 things to avoid discussing with newly met cruisers (Politics/Guns, Religion, Anchors).
A good thing about being an American who doesn’t carry a gun is our “reputation” precedes us. Therefore, one of the best defenses we have in a foreign port is simply flying the Stars & Stripes. At least that’s the rumor.
BTW, Bonaire views all flare guns as a weapon, so you have to turn it in/pick it up when checking in/out.
Fair Winds,
Mike
I didn’t know that about Bonaire. It will be a while before we make it that far. Any other islands have a similar rule?
A weapon, you’ve got the best weapon, Rebecca. She looks like she can handle any situation and that includes her husband. I’d keep her if I were you.
My husband always says “Never let the women take you alive”.
She is so dangerous I had to have her “registered” when I brought her to the US. 😉
AND she never runs out of ammo!
A couple of years back I talked to a self confessed gangsta doing time when I was shooting a film on crime in the Caribbean and he said one thing that caught my attention that the easiest and most lucrative thing to sell or fence down here is a gun and that reputation of US of A boats being armed to the teeth attracts rather than deters folks looking to steal. A Glock is worth serious money while a computer or camera is a pennies on the dollar situation.
Since then I have had a chance to talk to cruisers who have been robbed and they all underlined that their robbers asked demanded guns/money/cameras/computers…
Interesting.
As for us here in Texas, we all carry guns and wouldn’t think twice about protecting our home on land or water. We carry them in our cars whenever we leave the county. We sleep with sawed off shot guns. I can actually tell you which of my neighbors are shooters or non-shooters. Yeah, flying the American Flag may let them know there’s a 50/50 chance. And the people who are licensed are usually the calmest non violent people you’ll run across.
Potato cannons can do some damage… the son had one that could shoot a good sized baker across two residential lots and put a 4 inch hole in a cedar fence. He also had his windshield on his truck shattered by one a few years later. No…. I didn’t shoot at him, some other rowdy kid. You just have to have an air compressor to pressure it up in order to fire it.
I like the idea of the flare gun fired at the chest… then you could have flaming stickers on the side of your boat showing how many pirates you’ve roasted.
But how about the most recent item of self defense for walking women…. a can of wasp spray! We use them when walking in the wee hours of morning or late at night. (I haven’t used mine yet.) That stuff shoots 25 feet! Much farther than any can of mace or pepper spray, and burns like Hell! A blast to the face would give you enough time to get your gun or something to knock the pirate overboard.
BTW… a man riding a jet ski was shot in the head today, by a ‘pirate’ on Falcon Lake on the border of Texas and Mexico. Now you know why we carry guns.
Wasp spray? I haven’t heard of that before. Sorry to hear about the jet skier. That is awful.
Wasp spray is legal in all 50 states as far as I know, mace isn’t. And it comes in that really big can.
Hi Mike,
I have been following your web site for about 8 months now and really enjoy your approach and design with it all, (thank you) I have a question about the course you and Rebecca took. I believe it was the Fast Track to Cruising, my wife and family would like to do such a course in the next couple of months and I was wondering the feed back/your experience you all had. Any feed back would be great.
Cheers,
Jordi
Hi Jordi
We would highly recommend the Fast Track course. When we first read the curriculum we had doubts that it could all be covered in any substantial detail. Well, it did. Although it only started us on the learning curve, it gave us the confidence to buy a boat and sail it, and more importantly at the time, it solidified our desire to go cruising. If you have any specific questions, feel free to post here and we’ll do our best to answer them.
Mike
I think a gun aboard a boat ( or anywhere else, for that matter!) is far more dangerous to its owner than to potential robbers, etc. For one thing, it can be taken from its owner and used by the bad guys. However, I DO have a speedy, barking, dog. She will definately make any bad guys think twice, since they want to have a quick, quiet, profitable visit to their victim. In addition, I have various spray bottles full of a vinegar and water solution I use for cleaning. Bad guys may find their eyes being cleaned. Be warned!
Good dog:)
As an American and a future cruiser I am definitely in the no guns on board camp for all the reasons mentioned above. Plus, the last thing I want to be is one more “gun toting” American, it makes me sad that we have such a reputation for carrying guns everywhere. It certainly won’t make me feel safer for others to assume I am armed, it actually makes me feel more like a target. Personally, I’d rather be trusting and unarmed than paranoid and armed.
You mean like a Canadian? 🙂
Exactly! I was born in Minnesota, maybe I absorbed a little Canadian vibe from across the border at a young age 🙂
That would imply that all gun carrying individuals are paranoid 🙂
Always a provocative comment. We do not carry guns – quite apart from the bureaucratic hassle, we don’t know how to use them and therefore are far more likely to be killed with them than anything else!
We have sailed/land travelled in UK, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Malta Morocco, Hong Kong and NZ together, and with other people in Oz, Kenya, India and little bits of the US. Neither of us has ever been in a situation which would have been improved by a gun. When I read these conversations, it always seems to me that the US is the most dangerous country we could visit.
Provocative comments are welcome. 🙂
You sure have cruised in some interesting, and no doubt beautiful places.
Hi. I am a partner n the firm that manufactures these things. A couple of points. These launchers have been purchased by security firms protecting ships off of the African Coast. Seemingly, the image of a large person wielding a dangerous looking thing with a 2″ bore is fairly daunting. These are in waters where firearms cannot be carried, evidently. For some reason the details of these missions tends to be sketchy.
The non-lethal character of these type of launchers is appealing from a number of standpoints. The problem is that though they are non-lethal they are not non-dangerous and popping someone with a flare would not be a good thing. The only thing more dangerous than a crazed pirate is a tort attorney on an hourly rate.
If you monkey around with loads you might create a Destructive Device which you must resister. Monkey how? By loading a casing with anything that could be construed as being anti-personnel. Like BB’s or batons or the like.
The short answer is that you really need to do your homework before you buy/carry any weapon. If you have specific questions call or email us. You can also register on the 37mm.com forum to chat with some knowledgeable folks.
Be safe.
ed
Hello Ed
Thank you very much for posting here! I sincerely appreciate it.
Mike
Pleasure. They included our products on gCaptain some time ago when they did a story on Pirate protection devices. I don’t think that I have ever suggested that friend or acquaintance go armed anywhere since there are a lot of moving parts concerned with that decision. That said, it is pretty dangerous in certain areas. Personally, I think that controlling a situation (or at lease having a chance at controlling it) is far better than being a victim. Your mileage may vary.
All of the staff at Bates and Dittus are always available for long cruses where we will explain in detail the workings of our products and our development plans. Hands on demonstrations are included. You can pick us up in Norwalk CT. 🙂
I might have taken you up on the cruise thing, were we not a little bit south of you now. 🙂
Don’t take all of this gun-toting talk too seriously. We live on the Chesapeake and no one that we know carries a gun on board when cruising. It’s just not necessary.
Hi Lynn
Yeah, we’re not really the concerned type. We’d probably just make friends with any bad guys we run across. 🙂
Pepper Spray is LEGAL in all 50 states. STICK WITH THE PEPPER SPRAY! Wasp spray will not work on those who cannot feel pain i.e. drugs & alcohol. Pepper Spray is an inflammatory and will slam an individuals eyes shut no matter the situation. That’s why over 40,000 law enforcement agencies carry it nation wide and even the smallest can will fire 10 ft.
Hi Mike
Thanks for the comment. We were just in a hardware store yesterday and I commented to Rebecca about some pepper spray they had on display there.
If I could be assured that the bad guys would just take our stuff and go on their way, I’d be with you. I don’t relish the situation of watching someone rape or kill my wife, which is what makes me consider carrying a firearm. But my current leaning is toward some other device that is less restricted that will properly motivate unwanted personnel to depart.