Mistake leads pirates to kill cruising sailor

by Sail-World Cruising round-up on 11 Dec 2010 The daughter of a Canadian sailor who was shot and killed off the coast of Honduras last week tells how the pirates mistakenly thought her father was threatening them. Myda Egrmajer, daughter of Milan Egrmajer, an electrical engineer from Ottawa, told local reporters the details of what happened on their boat on what was to be a three month holiday.

She denied earlier reports that her father fought off the pirates, and said he was only trying to help them when the fatal shooting took place.

She said the four men approached their sailboat, which was waiting out nasty weather in a lagoon, and asked for tools to help repair their boat.

Egrmajer said the men asked for a screwdriver and jackknife. One of the men juggled the knife and when Milan Egrmajer, 58, reached toward them, he was shot.

'When he leaned over, I guess one of the other guys felt threatened and he pulled out a handgun and shot him in the chest four times,' Myda told the CBC in an interview aired Friday on the local TV station. 'I couldn't believe it. I can still hear the gun in my ear.

'When I saw my dad fall, I went out to be like 'Dad, are you OK?' It didn't cross my mind that someone had just shot him.'

The Canadians had been forced to seek shelter when bad weather hit four days into a trip that was supposed to last three months, entering the lagoon despite reports of pirate activity in the area.

'We took precautions, but at that point we were afraid something worse could happen being out there in the weather, so we took that chance,' said Myda, who had not sailed before.

They intended to leave the following morning, but decided to stay an extra day when the weather did not let up, she told CBC. That's when they were approached by the pirates, who she said 'didn't really look like nice people.'

Myda said she chased off her father's killers with a flare gun, but was then left to fend for herself with no sailing experience.

'My father had got the flare gun and put it behind me, so I picked it up and yelled at them and waved the gun at them,' she told the CBC. 'I think they thought it was real — thank God because they took off fairly quickly.'

She was able to operate the radio on the sailboat, but had to wait 17 hours for help.

A rescue boat was dropped from a passing freighter, but the sail boat was nearing a cliff when its engine died and she had to leave her father's body and get in the rescue boat. His remains have since been recovered, cremated and returned to Canada on Friday.

Myda was taken to neighbouring Belize by her rescuers and returned to Canada on Sunday, arriving in the family's hometown on northern Ontario's Manitoulin Island on Monday.