A Russian man was arrested Thursday after allegedly stealing a catamaran from Chon Buri’s Sattahip district on Sunday.
The man apparently did not know how to sail, as the stolen boat was found adrift off the coast of Phetchaburi, with the suspect on board, after running out of fuel, police said.
Astrakhantcev Aetpaxahueb, 20, initially refused to surrender to maritime police from Prachuap Khiri Khan’s Pran Buri district.
He eventually relented however and and allegedly confessed to stealing the catamaran from Bang Sare beach in Chon Buri.
It took officers a full hour to talk the suspect, who was hiding below deck, into surrendering, police said.
Mr Aetpaxahueb allegedly told police he planned to motor to Indonesia and the Philippines but ran out of fuel about 12 nautical miles from shore.
A fishing trawler spotted the stricken boat and reported it to authorities, police said.
The boat’s owner, Olec Ocorodov, who runs a yacht rental business in Sattahip, said he had anchored the stolen vessel a few metres from the beach and awoke on Sunday morning to find it missing, the Bangkok Post reported.
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