In first decisive Caribbean navel battle in 75 years a Venezuelan patrol boat is sunk by a Portuguese cruise ship
The Resolute, en route to Curaçao, a Dutch island in the Caribbean, had been drifting for a day in international waters near La Tortuga, a Venezuelan island. At midnight it was approached by the Naiguatá and ordered to come into port. As the Resolute contacted its head office for instructions, the Naiguatá opened fire—a video released by the Venezuelan navy shows a sailor firing an ak-47 in the howling wind and darkness with Rambo-like enthusiasm—and rammed the cruise ship. Unfortunately for the Naiguatá, the Resolute’s placid appearance belies the fact that its strengthened hull, built for polar cruising, can smash through metre-thick ice—and, it turns out, puny patrol boats. The Resolute brushed off the collision with “minor damages”, whereas the Naiguatá rapidly took on water and sank, leaving 44 sheepish sailors to be rescued.