Cruising sailor killed on yacht in Honduras by unknown assailants

by Sail-World Cruising Round-up on 5 Dec 2010 A yachting vacation turned into a nightmare when assailants boarded the yacht of a Canadian cruising sailor and his daughter and murdered him. Milan Egrmajer, 58, was killed Thursday after a gang of men swarmed his small yacht, named the Adena, off the northern coast of Honduras.

His daughter, Myda Egrmajer, 24, managed to fend off the attackers, but was forced to remain aboard the boat with her father’s body for hours until she was rescued.

She is now safe in Belize.

Ms. Egrmajer was cruising the Caribbean Sea with her father, who was 2 1/2 years into a voyage along the eastern coast of North America.

She had been aboard a few weeks when bad weather on Thursday forced them to dock in a sheltered area. The two were in a lagoon near an island about 30 kilometres north of the Honduran coast, off the port community of Tela, when their boat was swarmed by gunmen who tried to rob them.

Myda used a flare gun to scare off the assailants, then remained on the sailboat for several hours while Honduran officials searched for her through the bad weather.

By the time weather cleared Friday, Myda had been picked up by a private vessel operated by Australians and was en route to Belize

Milan’s voyage on Adena, his 1977 Ericson 35 Mark II sailboat, began on Lake Ontario in July 2008, according to a website he ran.

He ran his engineering consulting business, Egrmajer Consulting Inc., from his yacht, and his journey was open-ended.

In 2005, he decided to fulfil his dream, and started his search for the perfect boat.

The voyage was open-ended, with no set end date, no specific ports planned and an open invitation for crew members to join him on board.

Egrmajer was an experienced sailor of Caribbean waters. On his website, he wrote about his love of the open water.

'To me, water is a magnet. From the time I took my first steps, these steps were towards the nearest puddle…It is this magnetism that has spurned this sailing adventure. Trying to find out what lies beyond that horizon?'

Canadian Foreign Affairs warns that people travelling to Honduras should be very cautious in light of an increase in violent crime, and never display signs of affluence.

'Canadians are advised to exercise a high degree of caution at all times, including in the vicinity of hotels, in airports, bus terminals, shopping malls and other public places,' the government website says.

'Serious crime including armed robbery, kidnapping, carjacking and sexual assault, is also common.'

The website lists Tela, along with a handful of other areas, as an area where foreign tourists are often targeted, and also warns Canadians that incidents of sexual assault sometimes involve the use of sedative drugs.

A spokeswoman with the Department of Foreign Affairs said Canadian officials are aware of an incident involving two Canadians citizens in Honduras, and said Canadian representatives on the ground have confirmed that the surviving citizen has been located and is safe.

Officials in Honduras, as well as Foreign Affairs in Ottawa, are continuing to investigate the tragedy.