Somali Pirates Hijack Yacht Owned by American Couple

Pirates hijacked a yacht carrying four U.S. citizens off the Somali coast, Somalia's U.N. Mission said Friday.

Omar Jamal, first secretary at the Somali mission, identified the yacht to the Associated Press as the S/V Quest. The identities of the four hostages have not been released, but a website chronicling the ship's journey says it is owned by Jean and Scott Adam, a couple on a worldwide mission distributing Bibles.

The yacht was about 275 miles from the coast of Oman, in the middle of the Indian Ocean, when the pirates struck Friday, Andrew Mwangura, the maritime editor of Somalia Report, told The New York Times.

"They put out an SOS," he said. "The timing was bad. The pirates just intercepted them."

The Adams were unhappy being "dirt dwellers" so they took to the sea on their yacht, distributing Bibles around the world, their website said. Photos show a smiling couple who delivered Bibles to remote villages "from New Zealand to Alaska to Central America -- and now from Panama, through French Polynesia, the Cooks, Samoa, Tonga and back to New Zealand."

"We seek fertile ground for the Word and homes for our Bibles," the website said. "Often, the ultimate homes are best found by people who are already living locally and seeking and cultivating that fertile ground. AND even more extraordinary are the times when people have been praying for Bibles for their group or their schools and when we arrive we are often greeted by the attitude of, 'We were expecting you.'"

The site offered little specific information about the couple's background, although it identified Jean Adam as a retired dentist and noted that the Del Rey Yacht Club in Marina del Rey, Calif., is their mail drop.

Their voyage began in December 2004 and was expected to last 8 or 10 years, the website said. The leg of the journey begun this winter went from India to the Mediterranean, by way of the Arabian and Red seas. The couple hoped to reach Crete in the spring before sailing to Istanbul.

"Djibouti is a big refueling stop. I have NO idea what will happen in these ports, but perhaps we'll do some local touring. Due north is the Red Sea where we plan to tuck in when winds turn to the north," Jean Adams wrote on the site.

Jamal told the Associated Press that the hijacking raises "serious concern" because it came one day after a Somali pirate who kidnapped the captain of a U.S.-flagged merchant ship in 2009 was sentenced in New York. Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse was sentenced Thursday to 33 years in prison.

Jamal said Somalia's U.N. mission is calling for the immediate release of the hostages.

Jean Adams described herself on the website as someone who "has always had an interest in the biological sciences and the natural world around us all (otherwise known as God's creation). Music, reading, photography, religion, boats, travel, family and friends (in no particular order!) -- all absorb her attention -- both out at sea and on shore."

"We were so unhappy being 'dirt dwellers' during our time in the states that another floating abode had to be acquired," she said on the site.