Expat Wives

The Munich Sewing Club consisted of four middle-aged American and Canadian expat wives who met every week in the suburb of Gräfelfing, sewing socks and scarves while listening to the German news on the radio to keep up with their language skills.
They were discussing intensively about the recent antics of the expatriate women who got arrested for their crazy stunts in the past two days: such as the woman cutting the bed sheets at Neuschwanstein – that was a classic, the women thought; so was the woman smashing a gargoyle statue at the Cologne Cathedral – simply as a statement to their husbands that they were alone, frustrated and wanted them to work less and spend more time with them.
The sewing club members also felt alone, frustrated and wanted to make a statement to the world that they were fed up with their husbands’ work lives.
While the ladies brainstormed ideas of what they might do to gain their husband’s attention, news of copycat antics broadcasted on the radio: expat women lassoing gargoyle statues again at the Cologne Cathedral; some women wanting a kiss from the Bürgermeister of Frankfurt. Half hour later came the breaking news of two expat women putting a jackhammer to the Berlin Wall to make a statement as well.
The sewing club members decided it was time to get into the act. One of them had a brilliant idea: her husband had a motor boat at Lake Starnberg, a forty minute drive from the house, who used it every weekend for fishing, and it rested dormant for the rest of the week.

On the western shore of Lake Starnberg, the four women loaded the motor boat just before noon at a dock in Niederpöcking, south of the town of Starnberg. The Pentecost holiday week in May provided another sunny and warm day, with the wind providing the right breeze; the women noticed several sail boats out on the water.
Lake Starnberg is the fourth largest lake in Germany, stretching twenty-one kilometers from north to south, and a width of five kilometers from east to west. A popular recreation area for the city of Munich, it is best known as the site where King Ludwig II of Bavaria was found dead on the lake in 1886.
The state of Bavaria offers seasonal cruises on its tour ships, one of which was the MS Beautiful Bavaria, a thirty-meter catamaran with two sundecks and a restaurant that could seat a hundred passengers.

An ideal day for a hijacking, and a way to make a perfect statement for the press, the women thought.

One Canadian woman checked her watch; Beautiful Bavaria would pass in their direction going south within fifteen minutes, and most likely with a full load of passengers, enjoying the sea and sunshine on a warm holiday.
One of the American wives started up the outdoor motor, cleared the boat from the dock and accelerated to the intercept point. Bavaria was sighted through the binoculars of one of the Canadian wives. The women donned their life jackets and one of them prepared a smoke bomb under one of the seats.

The operator of the MS Beautiful Bavaria at the wheel thought he saw a small patch of morning fog on the surface of the lake. A closer look through the binoculars revealed a motor boat a couple kilometers away with four women in life jackets waving at him – smoke rose from the boat.
“Captain, I think we have boat in distress,” the wheelman said and passed the glass to a sixty-year-old man in white summer uniform and captain’s hat. The elderly man looked at the boat, then opened a channel on the maritime radio on his console. “Starnberg harbor patrol, here is Beautiful Bavaria, we have a possible boat in distress with four passengers about two kilometers dead ahead from our present position, smoke is pouring from boat. We are investigating, over and out.”
A voice crackled from the radio. “Roger, Bavaria. Keep us informed if fire and rescue ship is needed. Over.”
The wheelman accelerated the engines and the ship moved faster across the lake. Two minutes later the captain ordered full stop and sounded the ship’s blow horn to alert the motor boat, much to the consternation of the passengers. He grabbed his electronic megaphone and went to the bow of the ship. The smoking motor boat floundered about ten meters away as the Beautiful Bavaria drifted toward it on the starboard side.
“Meine Damen, was für eine Notfall ist das?” the captain blared through his megaphone, asking the ladies what sort of emergency they had.
“Help, help, our boat is on fire!” the ladies cried out in English.
Tourists, what else, the captain sighed. “Don’t panic, ladies,” he said in English. “Throw a rope to us and we’ll help you.” The captain turned to the wheelman behind the glass window of the wheelhouse and spoke through the megaphone, “Get a fire extinguisher and bring them on board.” The wheelman obeyed and ran down deck.

The passengers were all eyes on the smoking motor boat in distress with its English-speaking occupants. At two meters from Bavaria’s starboard side, one of the ladies in the boat threw a line to a passenger on the lower sun deck. The wheel operator arrived and helped pull the boat to the side.
All four ladies boarded the Bavaria in a blitz-like fashion, and from their life vests pulled out pistols.
One of the Canadians lifted her gun high in the air and fired a shot. “Stand back! Weg von hier!” she ordered in both languages.
“Everyone inside! Alle leute in der Kabine! Schnell!” demanded another Canadian.
Someone above in the upper deck screamed, “My God, we’re being pirated!”
Two of the expats immediately climbed the steps to the upper deck and shouted the same command to the passengers to get off the sundeck and inside the main room, which they all obeyed. The women placed padlocks on the doors of the cabins to keep the passengers inside and kept guard. One American woman climbed another set of stairs and entered the wheelhouse.
“Hände weg vom Radio! Keep your cotton-picken’ hands off the radio or I’ll shoot!” she yelled to the captain standing next to the console.
The captain lifted his hands up and said, “Please don’t harm the passengers. What do you want from me? Do you want the cash box?”
“We’re not here for money, honey. We’re the ‘Expat Wives’ and we’re here to make a statement.”
The captain looked confused and asked, “You’re who?”
“Well, actually we’re in a sewing club, but we’re also the ‘Expat Wives.’ Surely you’ve heard about the things our sisters have been doing all over Germany?”
“Ah, sewing?”
“No, things like running onto a soccer field during a game.”
“Oh yes, and smashing gargoyle heads, cutting King Ludwig’s bed sheets and jack hammering the Berlin Wall?”
“Exactly.”
“”I didn’t know you’re in the business of taking hostages now?”
“We’re not taking hostages. We want to make a statement that we are tired of our husbands working too long. We want you to open a channel on the radio so we can make a public announcement to the press.”
The captain noticed the gun in the woman’s hand was a flare gun. “Oh, I see,” he said. “Well, in that case, we’ll have to return to port in Starnberg to get a public band radio and to refuel too.”
“What?” the woman looked shocked. “A public band radio?”
“Yes, Madame. Our radio is only capable of contacting the harbor patrol, and nothing else. And besides, I forgot to refill this morning and if we run out of fuel now, we will eventually beach ourselves somewhere on the lake and severely damage the ship.”
The woman felt confused but tried to keep a straight face. “Very well, return the ship to Starnberg, and no funny business.”
“Aye, aye, Madame,” he said and started up the engines, meanwhile the captain pressed a button hidden underneath the console, alerting the police of an emergency on board.
Fifteen minutes later the MS Beautiful Bavaria approached the dock in Starnberg. The captain asked the Expat Wives if they could throw the lines to the deck crew. The American asked her three friends to go and assist, while she stayed in the wheelhouse with the gun still pointing at the captain. She failed to notice as soon as the ship docked, undercover policemen boarded the ship and overpowered the three women.
“No funny business. You promised,” she said to the captain.
“It’s too late, Madame. The police have already boarded the ship.”
She turned pale, then angry. “You lied to me. I’m going to shoot!”
“Go ahead and try,” demanded the captain. “At least remove the safety on the flare gun.”
The woman looked at her gun to find something that would say ‘safety’ on it. The captain reached out and grabbed her hand holding the gun, she pulled the trigger, it didn’t move. He used his other hand to grab the gun, but so did she. The captain held her arms high with the gun pointing toward the ceiling. In the struggle the woman felt a lever on the side of the gun and moved it forward with her thumb. She attempted to trip the captain with her foot; he fought to maintain balance, the gun moved away from the ceiling as she felt the trigger pull back.
A shot was fired, with an explosion that deafened both combatants. A flare smashed through the window of the wheelhouse and roared toward the lake like a fiery red comet in a downward descending arc. The flare punched through the mainsail of a passing by yacht and plunged into the water in a ball of steam.
The captain overpowered the woman to the floor and yanked the gun from the woman’s hand; the wheelhouse now full of smoke and broken glass from the shot. The captain felt a burn on his palm while touching the hot barrel of the flare gun during the struggle, he dropped the gun to the side and fanned his hand to cool it down. The woman laid there on the floor with tears welling up in her eyes, looking at the captain like a puppy dog.
“I’m sorry,” she said and coughed from the smoke.
“Surely, Madame,” he said with the grace of a gentleman. “There must be a better way to solve your marriage problems.” He opened the door of the wheelhouse and saw a police officer rushing up the stairs to help.