Captain saved our lives, crew says

April 12, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — It began with a grappling hook coming over the stern.

Suddenly, a group of Somali pirates were firing shots in the air, setting off a violent struggle on a massive freighter that crescendoed with a crewman from Connecticut stabbing a pirate in the hand with an ice pick.

For 19 of the crew of the Maersk Alabama, the ordeal was coming to an end Saturday as they pulled into a Kenyan port, where some publicly recounted their stories for the first time. Exhilarated by freedom, they also mourned the absence of Capt. Richard Phillips, whom they hailed for sacrificing his freedom to save them.

Phillips, 53, of Underhill, Vt., told his crew to lock themselves in a cabin and surrendered himself to safeguard his men, crew members said. He remained hostage Saturday, floating in a lifeboat with his pirate captors in a tense standoff with U.S. warships.

“He saved our lives!” second mate Ken Quinn, of Bradenton, Fla,, declared from the ship as it docked in the resort and port city of Mombasa. “He’s a hero.”

Quinn pumped his fists in the air and said he was ready for a cold beer and a hug from his wife and kids. For William Rios, a trip to give thanks at St. John the Baptist Church in New York City was high on his to-do list.

ATM Reza, a father of one from Hartford, Conn., described stabbing one of the pirates with an ice pick in the engine room and tying him up but watching the other bandits flee with the captain to the enclosed lifeboat.

Maersk President John Reinhart said from Norfolk, Va., that the ship was still a crime scene and the crewmen could not leave until the FBI investigates the attack.

He said crew members have been provided phones so they can stay in touch with family members.

“When I spoke to the crew, they won’t consider it done when they board a plane and come home,” Reinhart said. “They won’t consider it done until the captain is back, nor will we.”

Other bandits, among the hundreds who have made the Gulf of Aden the world’s most dangerous waterway, seized an Italian tugboat off Somalia’s north coast Saturday as it was pulling barges, said Shona Lowe, a spokeswoman at NATO’s Northwood maritime command center outside London.

The Foreign Ministry in Rome confirmed 10 of the 16 crew members are Italian. The others are five Romanians and a Croatian, according to Micoperi, the Italian company that owns the ship. A piracy expert said the two hijackings did not appear related.

Phillips jumped out of the lifeboat Friday and tried to swim for his freedom but was recaptured when a pirate fired an automatic weapon at or near him, according to U.S. Defense Department officials speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk about the sensitive, unfolding operations.