During the early morning hours of March 30, 2020, the German cruise liner RCGS Resolute came under attack from a Venezuelan Navy warship.
It should have been an easy win but, like so many things in Venezuela's recent history, things did not go as planned.
The German ship, owned by One Ocean Expeditions, was in international waters and flying a Portuguese flag. It was adrift as it performed maintenance on one of its engines when it was intercepted by the Venezuelan patrol ship ANBV Naiguatá.
This encounter came just days after the Trump administration declared Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to be a wanted drug trafficker and One Ocean Expeditions filed for insolvency.
Meanwhile, the Caribbean Sea is full of U.S. Navy ships.
Knowing all this, Venezuelan Capt. Granadillo Medina, in command of Naiguatá, saw a ship that appeared to be inoperable, from a company that is essentially bankrupt, floating on the edge of Venezuelan waters -- all while a hostile Navy might be waiting for the right moment to pounce.
From that perspective, one might suspect the Resolute was doing more than just maintaining an engine. Whether they were or not is unclear.
Medina radioed a warning to the Germans, demanding to board the cruise ship for inspection.
The Germans had no passengers and were set to rendezvous with a sister ship in Curaçao. They were already worried about being late and declined to be boarded.
The Venezuelans next ordered the Resolute to sail under escort to the nearby port of Puerto Moreno on Isla De Margarita.
When the Germans again failed to comply, the patrol ship attacked. Naiguatá fired warning shots across the cruise liner's bow. What comes next is disputed by everyone involved.
The Germans allege that the Naiguatá went straight at the Resolute, hitting the cruise ship's bow at a 135-degree angle. The ramming was supposedly the Naiguatá's effort to point the ship toward the island and force her into Venezuelan waters.
The tactic did not have the effect the warship wanted.
The Resolute suffered very little damage, its seaworthiness unaffected. And instead of forcing the cruise ship to go anywhere, it was the warship that suffered massive damage. She quickly began to take on water.
What those on the Naiguatá didn't seem to know is that the Resolute is a purpose-built polar expedition vessel, designed to operate in the most dangerous sea ice conditions. Her hull was reinforced for that purpose. A patrol boat like Naiguatá would never have been able to damage such a hull.
The warning shots are not in dispute, but who rammed who is. The Venezuelans say that after the Naiguatá fired the shots, it tried to cross the Resolute's path and cut the cruise ship off. They also claim the Resolute fired up its engine and intentionally rammed the Naiguatá using its reinforced hull.
Repeatedly.
Venezuela released a recording of the encounter, which can be seen 40 seconds into the video below.
As the Naiguatá began to take on water, the Resolute departed for Curaçao, allegedly leaving 44 Venezuelan sailors to go down with their ship, a violation of international maritime law.
Luckily, they were rescued by another Venezuelan vessel.
The owners of the Resolute deny the ship left the sailors to die. The Resolute's crew says they contacted the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) in Curaçao and asked whether the Venezuelans needed help. The Germans claim they were told they did not.
The only clear fact is that, after the incident, the Naiguatá went to the bottom of the Caribbean Sea and no one was killed. But Maduro maintains the Resolute was planning acts of "terrorism and piracy" off of Venezuela's territorial waters.
-- Blake Stilwell can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com, on Twitter @blakestilwell, or on Facebook.
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