Posted on 12/06/2001 1:00:18 PM PST by al-andalus
Killed by pirates America's Cup hero Blake shot dead on Amazon river
Peter Blake, who died at the age of 53, won the New Zealand Sportsman of the Year award twice. Nick Wilson/Allsport
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- Peter Blake, one of the world's most accomplished sailors who headed the New Zealand crew that won the America's Cup in 1995 and 2000, was shot and killed by river pirates during a robbery of his boat on the Amazon River in northern Brazil, police said Thursday.
Blake was shot dead late Wednesday during a holdup aboard his 119-foot (36-meter) yacht, the Seamaster, anchored on the Amazon River in the northern jungle state of Amapa, some 1,600 miles (2,600 kilometers) north of Sao Paulo, said state police chief Rosilene Martins de Sena.
Three or four assailants approached the Seamaster in a rubber dinghy commonly used by pirates on the Amazon river and shot Blake, 53, when he tried to resist the holdup, Sena said. Two crew members suffered minor injuries and were treated in the hospital in the nearby town of Macapa.
According to local media, the killers took a spare engine and several watches.
Alan Sefton, one of Blake's friends and a spokesman for his organization, blakexpeditions, said the crew spent two months in the upper reaches of the Amazon and Rio Negro and had encountered nothing but "friendly, warm, hospitable people."
"And as soon as the boat gets back into so-called civilization, something tragic happens," Sefton told New Zealand's One News television station.
Sefton said Blake's boat was anchored off Macapa in the mouth of the Amazon, awaiting customs clearance to leave Brazil after a two-month expedition as part of a program to monitor the effects of global warming and pollution.
Seamaster was scheduled to sail up the coast to Venezuela to meet blakeexpedition's jungle team.
In March 2000, Blake said he had received letters from someone threatening to kill him and harm his family.
"We've always got crank mail, but it has been going beyond that recently," Blake said at the time. "So we have taken all the precautions we were advised to take."
In November 2000, Blake went on a three-month study of wildlife in the South Pole region. He then traveled to the Amazon for several months of sailing.
American skipper Dennis Conner, a three-time America's Cup winner who was beaten by Team New Zealand 5-0 in 1995, was impressed with Blake's determination.
"He was a hero and role model for the New Zealand people and obviously a winner that was focused and accomplished his goals, whether it was winning the round-the-world race or the America's Cup," Conner said Thursday.
After Blake won in 1995, Governor General Dame Cath Tizard said it was her country's proudest day since Auckland native Edmund Hillary became the first man to climb Mount Everest in 1953.
The America's Cup was the only major sailing trophy that the self-proclaimed "Nation of Sailors" hadn't won, and Team New Zealand beat its archrival with one of the most dominating performances in America's Cup history.
"It's only the second time in history that it's left America," Blake said at the time. "I think that's pretty damn good. I think the Americans are going crazy. It'll be a very popular win everywhere."
Bruno Trouble, an organizer of the America's Cup and a friend of Blake, told France-Info radio that Blake "went through life like lightning. Peter was an extraordinary leader of men ... he had an amazing charisma. I think that he was actually hiding his shyness."
Blake was appointed in July as a goodwill ambassador of the United Nations Environment Program. Before that, he headed the Cousteau Society, an environmental group founded in 1973 by the late undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau.
"I've seen lots of things I want to show kids," Blake said last year. "I've gone, `wow,' `fantastic' and `marvelous.' I want to capture some of those now, and get young people interested in the environment."
Sefton said Blake considered the expedition his last and greatest adventure, hoping to create greater awareness of the need to take care of the environment.
"For him to go this way is inconceivable and hard to comprehend," Sefton said.
Blake, born in Auckland, announced earlier this year that he was relinquishing control of the New Zealand syndicate.
He was knighted in 1995.
Blake, who began sailing at age 5, won the Whitbread Round the World Race in 1989 and took the Jules Verne Trophy in 1994 by sailing nonstop around the globe on a catamaran in 74 days, 22 hours, 17 minutes and 22 seconds. The record fell three years later.
He was the only person to compete in the first five Whitbread around-the-world yacht races, each taking around nine months to complete. Last year, he became the first non-American entry to retain the America's Cup in 149 years after beating Italian challengers Prada 5-0.
He is survived by his wife, Pippa, and two children.
By hanging pirates immediately when caught red-handed. Bush's maligned anti-terrorism EO is a joke compared to the kind of acts that ended piracy and slavery.
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