The incident took place in the early hours of Mar. 30, 2020, but the cruise ship operator only released an official statement on April 1st. It could almost be taken for an April Fool’s joke. It wasn’t.  

The Portuguese flag expedition cruise ship RCGS Resolute was drifting just over 13 miles off the coast of Isla La Tortuga, a Venezuelan island 60 miles off the country’s northern coast. With no passengers aboard the crew was performing maintenance on one of the two engines. Around midnight on the 30th, the Venezuelan Navy patrol ship ANBV Naiguatá approached the cruise ship. The Resolute was ordered to follow Naiguatá to Puerto Moreno on Isla De Margarita, located to the east. The Venezuelans accused it of violating the country’s territorial waters.

While the Resolute’s Master was in contact with his head office for instructions, the patrol apparently fired several warning shots. ANBV Naiguatá then rammed into the starboard side of the cruise ship at an angle of 135° in what may have been an attempt to turn the ship’s head towards Venezuelan territorial waters.

The tactic didn’t work out well for the Naiguatá. The Resolute is ice-strengthened and suffered only minor damage from the ramming. The Naiguatá, on the other hand, struck the cruise ship’s ice-strengthened bulbous bow, seriously damaging her own hull forward, below the waterline. The patrol craft took on water and sank. 

Columbia Cruise Services, the Resolute‘s operator, referred to the ramming as “an act of aggression by the Venezuelan Navy in international waters,” while Venezuela accused the Resolute of an act of “aggression and piracy.”  It also said it “did not rule out” that the cruise ship “was transporting mercenaries to attack military bases in Venezuela”. 

Columbia Cruise Services said the Resolute remained in the area for more than an hour and contacted rescue co-ordinators on the Dutch Caribbean island of Curaçao. All attempts to contact the Naiguatá went unanswered and the Resolute eventually sailed to Willemstad on Curaçao, it added.

The Venezuelans reported that all of the crew of the patrol boat were rescued.

The 403-foot-long Resolute has a gross tonnage of 8,445 tons. The ship, intended for Antarctic cruises, was laid down in September 1990 and completed in June 1991.

The Naiguatá, is just over 262 feet long. She is a Guaicamacuto class offshore patrol vessel and displaces around 1,720 tons with a full load. Naiguatá is the third ship in the class and entered service in 2011.

Thanks to Jim Kinney for contributing to this post.