Here’s a story that you don’t see often.
On Monday, the managers of Florida’s Blowing Rocks Marina near Tequesta, notified police that a 66-foot yacht had been stolen from the marina and was underway. The police, alerted the Coast Guard and the local marine patrol and then jumped into a speedboat to make chase.
They located the stolen boat, a modern flybridge express cruiser, in the Intracoastal waterway near Hobe Sound but the perpetrator had no intention of going quietly. So, law enforcement had to use their patrol boats to stop the much larger yacht.
Employing boat handling techniques that must be an element of their training, the team used their large inflatables as tug boats, and gradually were able to stop the 66-footer. But that wasn’t the end of it.
To make sure they got their man, the team of inflatables pushed the stolen vessel sideways right into the mangroves that lined the side of the waterway until it ran aground and was incapacitated. Once the yacht was stopped and the thief surrounded, he surrendered without incident.
The man has been identified as Nikolai Vilka. He was taken into custody and, not speaking English, the US Department of Homeland Security provided him with a Russian interpreter.
The story was reported and dramatic video taken by the news team at TV Channel 6 South Florida.
Read more and watch the videos of the chase and arrest here.
