Ah, the French

The Wall Street Journal has an article by Siobhan Gorman, Sarah Childress, and David Gauthier-Villars about the Somali pirates and their captives:

The American sea captain held hostage by Somali pirates tried to escape Friday and was recaptured, a US official said, with no action from the US Navy destroyer monitoring the situation from nearby in the Indian Ocean. Meanwhile a separate piracy incident ended tragically to the north in the Gulf of Aden, when the French Navy intervened to recapture a 48-foot sailing yacht from pirates who were holding five people hostage, including a three-year-old boy. During the recapture, one hostage was killed, the yacht's owner. The family had sunk their savings into the boat to leave most material trappings behind last summer and show their son that "you don't need Christmas-present catalogs, magic cereals, Spiderman and Dora to be happy", according to messages posted on their blog about the trip.
The combination of events illustrated the tough choices and potentially disastrous risks as governments and private companies struggle to fend off a wave of piracy that has led to the seizures of dozens of commercial ships off the north and east coasts of Africa. Military action in recent piracy incidents in the region has been rare. The US and other Western nations have been reluctant to storm ships because of the risk of bloodshed aboard.
The current standoff involving the captain of the Maersk-owned cargo ship Alabama is the first instance where a US citizen is involved. Vice Admiral William Gortney, the commander of US naval forces in the region, described the brief capture of the Maersk Alabama as the kind of "game changer" in the region US officials have anticipated might happen, but he didn't say how it might change US policy.
The French military has now intervened three times in the recent spate of piracy incidents in the region, but this was the first time a hostage died. French officials said the Navy attempted to negotiate a peaceful solution with the pirates on Thursday.
On Friday, the Navy opted to try and free the hostages because the kidnappers had threatened their lives and the yacht was drifting closer to the coast, where a military intervention would have been more difficult. Pirates had seized the yacht, called the Tanit, last Saturday.
Tension continued to heighten Friday in the standoff stemming from the brief capture of the US-flagged Alabama, as more pirate skiffs were said to reach the area after the captain's unsuccessful escape attempt. The Pentagon said more Navy ships were converging to join the USS Bainbridge, a state-of-the-art destroyer, at the scene.
A USofficial said Captain Richard Phillips, who is being held on a lifeboat from the Maersk Alabama after he was taken Wednesday during the struggle for control of his ship, appeared to have tried to jump off the boat and outswim the pirates on Friday. It wasn't immediately clear how the captain was recaptured, the official said, saying that the pirates may have jumped in after him or maneuvered their vessel to pull him back aboard.
On Wednesday, pirates had boarded the Maersk Alabama, a container ship carrying food aid bound for Mombasa, Kenya. By the end of the day, the American crew had regained control, but their captain was spirited off the ship by the pirates into one of the vessel's enclosed life boats.
Somalia pirates operate in diffuse, clan-based networks from havens along the coast. Often the pirates or people claiming to represent them will broadcast their ransom demands through the international press. On Friday, one such middleman, reached by cell phone in a town near the pirate haven of Eyl, said he had spoken to the pirates. He said they had demanded a ransom. He said Mr. Phillips was in good condition despite escaping and being recaptured. He said other pirates had mobilized three small skiffs to the area.
The Maersk Alabama appeared to be headed toward Mombasa, its intended port of call before the attack, with a military attachment aboard. Maersk had said it plans to fly the crew home when they pull into port.
The family aboard the Tanit set sail from France last summer, bound for Zanzibar. Florent Lemaçon, his wife Chloé and their son Colin were joined by two friends to help them be able to sail day and night, their blog said. In Egypt, they met another French couple who had been taken hostage by pirates off Somalia and warned them of the dangers, but the Lemaçons say on their blog that they thought the piracy issue was exaggerated by the media. They left Aden on 14 March 14.

Rico says, boy, were they wrong...