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No *expletive deleted*it, there we were.....
circa early 2002 moving ammo, weapons, and vehicles to a remote port in Central America, supporting our allies down there. About 200 mile east of Cancun, headed south-ish. As you can imagine in that timeframe we were a little twitchy, and we had munitions on board. At the time we were enforcing a 150m exclusion zone around all our vessels.
Radar contact, on the port beam, steady bearing decreasing range. *expletive deleted*it.
At about 3 miles out it's becomes obvious that it's a sweet yacht in the 80' range. One of the ones with a nice fly bridge up top.
At 2.5 miles or so, we start hailing on VHF to arrange the crossing. No answer. We progress to sounding stern on the radio and identifying ourselves as a military vessel. No answer. Sound General quarters, load the guns. Call on radio again. Nothing.
The collision avoidance plots show we'd have to damn near turn around, or stop dead to pass at a good distance. (The particular course and speeds of the two vessels meant we couldn't really get away. we didn't have the reserve speed to clear him) Skipper is like "F that, we're Stand On here". Hit the fog horn and call again. Mention this time that we are an armed military vessel. Nothing. No movement, or sign of life on the yacht.
He cleared .75nm (4000yds), and we go weapons green (one in the chamber, ready to rock). Call several more times, mention that they need to turn away, or they will be fired upon. Nada.
At about 300-250M Skipper says "Put a burst across their bow". 10 rounds from Ma Deuce reach out and splash about 75m in front of the incoming vessel. Pretty much instantly a dude sits up in the fly bridge and looks at us with HUGE eyes. Then he starts hitting his lap and pushing something away. Shortly thereafter a very tanned young lady that was not constrained by thoughts of bikini tops sits up, looks at us on the gun deck and, no *expletive deleted*it, wipes her mouth and waves. Dude meanwhile has killed his autopilot, firewalled his engines and turns 90 degrees away from us. Hold that course and what looks like every bit of speed his boat will give him till he clears the horizon and we loose him on RADAR.
Good times. I was on the helm so I didn't get to shoot at them, but had a nice view of the friendly young lady.
I'd bet that RKL has some good periscope video stories. I've heard subs can be sneaky about that kind of thing.