Mahdi and Gandalf - Boston Globe Style

Pirates and two yachts as reported in the Boston Globe a year after the event here.

Noonsite report from March 2005 here. Participant report here (from April 2005).

Couple of good quotes, though:

THE 21ST CENTURY IS WELL under way, but in some parts of the world, piracy is more prevalent than ever. Last year, 276 acts of piracy and armed robbery against ships were reported to the International Maritime Bureau, a division of the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce.
While the overall number of incidents was down from 2004, when 329 were reported, the Gulf of Aden saw an increase in attacks, from eight to 10.
But David Pearl, a civilian maritime analyst with the US Office of Naval Intelligence, isn’t sure any of the piracy numbers are accurate. “Worldwide reporting has decreased,” he says, “but piracy is always underreported at unknown levels.” He wonders if the overall drop might be attributed more to the insurance industry, where certain thresholds mean that some incidents won’t be reported. On the other hand, several factors might be causing the uptick in reported attacks in the Gulf of Aden. “Maritime armed crime is always a reflection of what’s going on on land,” Pearl explains. Combine poor socioeconomic conditions with high shipping densities in low-security areas, and he says you’ve got all the ingredients for “maritime predatory behavior.”

Sea robbery and piracy, in other words.