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Chapman Ducote, owner of Anahita V

A superyacht owner who cares deeply for the heritage of classic marques – yet is also to be found regularly risking his life in the water? As Stewart Campbell discovers, racing car driver and owner of 1952 Feadship yacht Anahita V Chapman Ducote is an enviable study in contrasts.

No one can make you feel inadequate quite like superyacht owner Chapman Ducote. If it was just the house on South Beach in Miami, the successful business employing 500 people, and the beautiful author wife, I could just about stomach it. But there’s more: in his spare time this tanned native of New Orleans gets into the boat at the end of his garden and blasts to the Bahamas to go spear-fishing and free-dive. He also snowboards, and is a regular visitor to the podium in the various race-car series he’s involved in.

Then there are his charitable works, his seat on the board of the Miami Symphony Orchestra and his patronage of a well-respected Florida art museum. I bet he even plays the guitar. Ducote, at just 38, is a walking, talking motivational slogan, and when we meet at the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show, it is impossible not to be utterly tractor-beamed by his affable, easy-going nature. I don’t want to interview him; I want to go grab a beer with him. And then go spear-fishing.

Unfortunately, he’s got work to do. He’s at the show with Sweden’s Delta Powerboats , for which he’s recently become the US importer. Deltas represent the cutting edge in yacht design – razor sharp and made completely of carbon for exceptional performance and efficiency. But while undoubtedly cool, the boat I’m here to talk about is the polar opposite of these futuristic Swedes; Ducote is also the proud owner of 24.69 metre Anahita V , the biggest Feadship ever when she was launched in 1952, and the very first yacht from the company to be imported into the US.

Ducote found the yacht completely by chance, sitting anonymously in a California boatyard. “It’s kind of a funny story,” Ducote says. “My wife does most of her writing on boats, and while we live on the water, she can’t write a word at home. So she told me she wanted an old tugboat that we could put at the end of the garden to act as a writing studio and guest house.

“I realised that it was going to be a hell of a lot of work to gut an old tugboat, so I thought to myself, ‘I wonder how much old Feadships are?’ I started digging around and ended up on a website chat room. I was just like, ‘click, click, click, then boom’ – there she was. The yacht wasn’t advertised, and the guy didn’t know what he had,” Ducote continues. “It was the first Feadship superyacht ever built and the one where they realised their business model. So to say my boat is historically significant is an understatement! It’s like owning the first Ferrari ever built or the first Rolls-Royce they ever raced.”

A racing Rolls-Royce with a shady past, that is. Anahita V spent the first part of her US life cruising the East Coast, before her owner was lured to California by the sun and sparkling seas. There he sold her to a local, who cruised her between San Diego, southern California… and Mexico. “A lot. A little too much, if you know what I mean,” Ducote hints. The owner was eventually indicted for smuggling and the Feadship became a ward of the state for years before being sold at auction in the 1980s to its next owner; he lived on board her for the next 30 years, until Ducote saw her mentioned in the chat room.

“And it was a gem. I had some boys from Holland fly over to take a look at it and they were shocked at how good a condition it was in. All the mill-work, all the bulkheads, the shafts, engines and generators – all of it is original. And the whole boat is teak, it’s like a brick. Feadship built a sistership two years after this one, in mahogany, and it’s gone,” Ducote says. “When I called Feadship and told them about the boat they couldn’t believe it. They thought it was dead. I’m surprised there hadn’t been a bigger hunt for it, because the people who love these boats are fanatics.”

The yacht remains in California, a long way from Ducote’s Miami home. He plans to totally refit her, and is in discussions with Feadship to book a slot, likely in late 2015. Mechanically, though, Anahita V is running sweet, which Ducote discovered for himself on a seven-hour passage out into the Pacific and back. He expects the yacht to be with Feadship for a year before she’s ready to be relaunched, sometime in late 2016. “I never thought about getting it refitted in America,” Ducote says. “I really wanted to be partners with Feadship on this. I want them involved, I want their blessing.”

Once complete, Anahita V will stay in the Med, acting as Ducote’s European escape – and hopefully appreciating in value, he says with a twinkle. “In 10 years or so classic boats are going to feel much more special. I said to Henk de Vries (Feadship CEO): ‘Henk, why would somebody pay $20 million for a Ferrari when they could pay much less for a classic Feadship of which there’s only one?’ They made 10 or 20 of these Ferraris and there’s only one of these boats; it’s pretty special. So I do think the market for classic yachts, in particular classic Feadships, is going to skyrocket.”

There’s clearly a fine business mind behind that big smile. Ducote’s day job is running Merchant Services, a credit card processing business. He also makes money from his racing career through sponsorship deals, and nowadays races exclusively in endurance events – 24 hours at Daytona, for instance, or 12 hours at Sebring. It amounts to about four or five events a year. “You have to have a good programme,” he says. “The old rule in racing is spin, win or crash. You have to get your sponsorship exposure, and deliver for them mainly in a business-to-business capacity.”

Somehow he even finds time to act as the US agent for Delta Powerboats, and it’s one of that company’s models, the triple IPS-powered, all-carbon 54 that he’s got sitting at the end of his South Beach garden. He’s long desired to be in the boat business and despite the joy he gets from whipping a car around a racetrack at breakneck speeds, it’s really always been about the boats. “My first conscious memory is rolling around the saloon floor of a Hatteras sportsfish boat, which my father had at the time. There was a storm and I was looking through the back door. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t speak. But I remember rolling around that floor,” he says.

The experience clearly engendered some kind of desire to push the limits when it comes to water. In his weekend trips over to the Bahamas in his boat, he regularly dives for his lunch, speargun in hand. “It’s a challenge, mentally and physically,” he says. “You’re in an environment you’re not supposed to be in, combating currents and winds and fighting sharks – literally.” Sharks? “Yeah, it’s happened many times: I’ve had to hit sharks. You punch them in the nose, or use one of your spears and put it in their eye or gills or whatever. I never feel more alive than when I’m spear-fishing.” His hunting is done in about 18 metres of water, but he goes much deeper when he free-dives, his record being about 39 metres. This means he holds his breath for about a minute and a half.

“Sometimes I go so deep I lose consciousness,” he says, deadpan. “That’s happened to me before. I had a friend who helped get me back. But it’s a cool sport. It takes a lot of training, a lot of fitness and a certain type of personality to want to do it.” It’s hard to reconcile this daredevil side of his personality with the desire to travel sedately at 12 knots on a 60-year-old classic in the Med, but part of Ducote’s charm is that there are no borders to his enthusiasm, no single stream that he swims in. It just makes him, irritatingly, that much more interesting.

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Jonathan S. Chapman

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JONATHAN S. CHAPMAN, CPYB

Jonathan developed a love for yachting at an early age, learning the ins and outs of seamanship from his family while cruising the coast of Maine. His college summers were spent working as dockmaster and launch operator at several New England yacht clubs, while simultaneously racing in local PHRF and one design fleets.

Prior to his entry into the brokerage business in 1999, Jonathan spent several years employed aboard various motor yachts, both private and charter. This first-hand knowledge of the many aspects of yachting – from vessel servicing to operation to business management – provides him with the unique ability to understand the many facets of yacht ownership.

Jonathan’s brokerage experience casts a wide net, including production sail and powerboats, new build mega-yachts and classic wooden yachts. He has worked with the well-respected firms of Bartram & Brakenhoff, International Yacht Collection and Northrop & Johnson.

Jonathan currently serves as the President of the Yacht Brokers Association of America (YBAA), and has been paramount in their form’s revision committee, assisting in the redesign of the contracts used by licensed brokers across the industry. He is a member of IYBA (International Yacht Brokers Association) and earned his CPYB (Certified Professional Yacht Broker) certification in 2005. He is also a Florida-licensed yacht broker and a licensed yacht captain.

Jonathan offers comprehensive knowledge of yachting to both Worth Avenue Yachts and his clients with focus on brokerage yacht sales and new construction projects worldwide. He has earned a reputation in the industry for honesty, integrity, and for going the extra mile. Jonathan represents the Newport, Rhode Island office of Worth Avenue Yachts and he is standing by to assist you in listing your yacht for sale or finding your next dream yacht.

For more information on yachts for sale in New England, Florida or anywhere worldwide, contact Jonathan today.

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'Lobsters in a boiling pot': Ex-GOP lawmaker warns MAGA plot for violence is taking shape

Matthew Chapman

News writer, matthew chapman is a video game designer who attended rensselaer polytechnic institute and lives in san marcos, texas. before joining raw story, he wrote for shareblue and alternet, specializing in election and policy coverage..

Former President Donald Trump's loyalists are laying out an agenda for violence, warned former Rep. David Jolly (R-FL) on Tuesday's edition of MSNBC's "The Beat" — and American voters need to wake up and wipe them out up and down the ballot.

This comes shortly after Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation and the overseer of Project 2025, proclaimed America is on the brink of a second revolution, which will be "bloodless" only if the left doesn't stand in their way.

"It seems every day we're reporting about a new threat of violence or retribution coming from Trump or MAGA world," said anchor and legal analyst Katie Phang. "My question is this: If the threat of judicial action has been neutered or rendered impotent and the GOP norms for the party as we've seen from the 2024 platform have now all been debased, what's left to protect Americans?"

The answer, Jolly replied, is "re-electing House and possibly Senate Democrats. You want to stop Project 2025 and the weaponization of the Department of Justice, keep Donald Trump out of the White House and put Democrats in charge of the lower house that's responsible for impeachment and other proceedings. That's the way to do it."

Read also: Former Republican congressman David Jolly makes brutal point about the GOP Senate and Jeffrey Epstein

"I think the trendline is what's so terrifying," he continued. "In some ways, we were kind of lobsters in a boiling pot, because where this was maybe talked about among some activists in the shadows in 2016, you saw this group of leaders, the John Yoos and others and candidates like the North Carolina gubernatorial candidate , they didn't really emerge with power in the Trump administration until that last chapter when Donald Trump realized all of these people will do my bidding for me. They'll weaponize the Department of Justice. This is my team. We know what would happen now. They would be there on day one in a second Trump term. That is the real term. The focus is important because it's a foundational document for Republicans. But I also don't think we can focus so much on it that we let Donald Trump escape his own statements and his own records."

Trump's denials he has anything to do with Project 2025, Jolly added, are "garbage."

"We know he said he wants to engage in retribution," said Jolly. "We know Donald Trump embraces economic and inequality. His record on education and healthcare and infrastructure is terrible. We know he wants to roll back individual and voting rights and rights of minority communities. Those are Donald Trump's platforms and words. Not just Project 2025. Project 2025 organizes it and adds fuel to Trumpism and a Donald Trump presidency. Both of them are equally scary. Together, I guess more so."

Watch the video below or at the link here .

Stories Chosen For You

Should trump be allowed to run for office, mary trump: america is in 'cognitive decline' if it can't remember 'horrors' of my uncle.

The media should be profoundly concerned for the cognitive health of the American people if they are truly considering putting former President Donald Trump back in power, the former president's niece Mary Trump wrote in her latest email blast.

This comes amid ongoing worry among pundits and the Democratic congressional rank and file about President Joe Biden's health and fitness to campaign against Trump in the 2024 election — a fear Biden himself sought to put to rest today with a fiery and rousing NATO speech .

"The United States of America appears to be experiencing cognitive decline," wrote Ms. Trump. "That’s the only way I can explain the short memories that have erased the horrors of my uncle’s catastrophic four years in the Oval Office. It’s the only way I can explain a poll that shows Donald with a 51 percent approval rating in Wisconsin . It’s the only way I can explain why this race is so close and Donald — the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist and fraud — remains a significant threat to our democracy."

When Trump left office, she noted, there was an explosion of violent crime, an economic collapse that peaked at 15 percent unemployment, and above all mass deaths from a pandemic that he suggested Americans combat by drinking household cleaners.

Read also: 'Honeybunch': Mary Trump reveals disturbing origin of uncle's pet name for Stormy Daniels

"Waxing nostalgic? For a time when over 5,000 Americans were dying every day; basic supplies, like toilet paper and hand sanitizer, were impossible to find; and Donald showed his concern for the American people by playing golf every day? Yes, I’m worried about us," she wrote.

"Americans have short memories. And after the massive traumas we’ve experienced over the last eight years, it’s completely understandable that people are inclined to forget. That’s how trauma works. The reason things in this country continue to seem bad now despite much evidence to the contrary is because we’ve never recovered from the horrors of the Trump administration. Ironically, forgetting how bad things were is leading to nostalgia for the worst four years of my lifetime," she concluded. "The fact that it’s explicable doesn’t make it any less horrifying."

'Yacht trip to Russia': Senators publish list of Clarence Thomas’ gifts from benefactors

Two Senate Democrats have published a list of roughly three dozen lavish gifts Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas received from right-wing billionaires during his time on the Court.

On the eve of the Independence Day holiday, Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel to investigate Thomas for "possible violations of ethics and tax laws" in his "repeated and willful omissions" of gifts from wealthy benefactors.

"The scale of the potential ethics violations by Justice Thomas, and the willful pattern of disregard for ethics laws, exceeds the conduct of other government officials investigated by the Department of Justice for similar violations," Whitehouse and Wyden wrote. "The breadth of the omissions uncovered to date, and the serious possibility of additional tax fraud and false statement violations by Justice Thomas and his associates, warrant the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate this misconduct."

On page 14 of the PDF Whitehouse posted to his Senate website, there are two lists of gifts to Thomas. The first list describes gifts from far-right real estate magnate Harlan Crow, and the second list shows gifts from other wealthy sponsors, like entrepreneur Anthony Welters — who "loaned" Thomas a luxury RV and then later forgave the loan — and billionaire Wayne Huizenga.

Read also: 'No shame': Experts explain why one Supreme Court justice went 'full MAGA'

The gifts from Crow date back to 2003, and list excursions like "Yacht trip to Russia and the Baltics" and Helicopter to Yusipov Palace, St. Petersburg." Out of the roughly two dozen gifts Crow gave to Thomas, four are private school tuition payments for his grand-nephew. Many of Crow's other gifts were private jet flights and yacht cruises, including one Sens. Whitehouse and Wyden described as "around Greek islands."

And out of the gifts on the second list, three were from Huizenga, two were from Welters, and five were from former Berkshire Hathaway board member David Sokol. Billionaire Warren Buffett, who owns Berkshire Hathaway, forced Sokol out in 2011 after he learned that Sokol bought a stake in a company he later convinced Buffett's company to buy. Buffett called Sokol's actions "inexplicable" and "inexcusable."

"No government official should be above the law. Supreme Court justices are properly expected to obey laws designed to prevent conflicts of interest and the appearance of impropriety and to comply with the federal tax code," the senators wrote. "We therefore request that you appoint a Special Counsel authorized to investigate potential criminal violations by Justice Thomas under the disclosure, false statement, and tax laws; pursue leads of related criminal violations by donors, lenders and intermediate corporate entities; and determine whether any such loans and gifts were provided pursuant to a coordinated enterprise or plan."

In 2023, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Davide Cay Johnston commented that it was possible Thomas could face " criminal prosecution " by not paying taxes on the previously undisclosed gifts from Crow and others. He opined that any lower-level court judge would not be able to avoid the charges if they failed to pay taxes on gifts worth millions of dollars.

"What Clarence Thomas has done would result in not only any judges in America being removed from the bench, but there is a good chance it would result in criminal prosecution for income tax fraud and for false filings in his mandatory financial ethics disclosure statements," Johnston said in December.

Last month, anti-corruption watchdog group Fix the Court totaled Thomas' gifts and found that the conservative jurist had received approximately $4 million in gifts dating back to 2004 – far more than any other justice on the Supreme Court. And of the 193 gifts Thomas received, he only listed 27 on his required financial disclosure reports.

The $37 billion reason Marco Rubio could be Trump's VP pick

There's a key reason why Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) could be a tantalizing pick for former President Donald Trump's running mate: GOP megadonor Ken Griffin.

According to The Daily Mail, longtime Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski says that "If Sen. Rubio is the choice there are plenty of donors I'm sure will come along – including Ken Griffin, allegedly."

Griffin, a hedge fund tycoon estimated to be worth $37 billion, backed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over Trump in the primary, who went on to flame out with a botched campaign. He was outspoken against Trump in 2022, calling him a "three-time loser" and saying the GOP should "move on" from him.

Rubio being on the ticket, however, could reportedly sway Griffin, who moved his company, Citadel, from Chicago to Miami in recent years, unlocking a deep source of campaign funding for GOP PACs.

Rubio, who first rose to prominence in the early 2010s Tea Party movement, ran against Trump for president in 2016, sharply attacking his character and morals, but became a loyal supporter of the former president while he was in office.

Read also: 'Ideological lunacy': CNN's Bash puts scrambling Marco Rubio on the spot over Project 2025 '

If Rubio is the choice, there is a potential legal complication: it would mean both people on the Republican ticket are from Florida, which would run afoul of the 12th Amendment's prohibition on electors voting for both a president and a vice president from their own state — meaning that if Florida's remains in Trump's camp and its 30 electoral votes are decisive in his margin, Rubio would not have the votes to be confirmed vice president.

Trump could potentially get around this, however, by relocating his state of residence back to New York, where he still maintains a penthouse in Trump Tower; a similar conundrum faced the George W. Bush presidential ticket in 2000, which was resolved when running mate Dick Cheney relocated his residence from Texas to Wyoming.

BUSTED: Three members of Congress violate federal financial law

'extremely painful': republicans blast kevin mccarthy’s 'pathetic' revenge tour, amid allegations of biden’s decline, no one can point to one mistake.

Copyright © 2024 Raw Story Media, Inc. PO Box 21050, Washington, D.C. 20009 | Masthead | Privacy Policy | Manage Preferences | Debug Logs For corrections contact [email protected] , for support contact [email protected] .

Trump tells Hannity he believes 'Hunter's calling the shots' in latest baseless rant

F ormer President Donald Trump, who has largely shied away from public events since the presidential debate in Atlanta, appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox News program on Monday for a lengthy discussion about President Joe Biden's broadly perceived loss in the debate and the concerns among the punditry and within his own party over his cognitive health.

Trump, who has himself raised mental health alarms with his rally ramblings about shark attacks and boat batteries, went into a lengthy rant in which he speculated that Biden's son Hunter was the mastermind behind his administration.

"It looks to me like he may very well stay in, he has an ego and he does not want to quit, he does not want to do that, looks to me that's what he wants," said Trump. "I think that [First Lady] Jill [Biden] would like to see him stay, she's having a good time, she seems to be having a really good time and I'm hearing that Hunter's calling the shots. This is not necessarily a very popular thing for the country, but I think he might very well stay in, and if he does, nobody wants to give it up that way."

Want more breaking political news? Click for the latest headlines at Raw Story.

Read also: 'He lied once every 90 seconds': Dem flips script on Fox News host over Trump's debate

"He will feel badly about himself for a long time," Trump added. "It's hard to give it up that way, the way to try to force him out. Really have to speak to his doctors, obviously has been sheltered by the fake news media, that's why they call it fake news."

Hunter Biden, who was recently convicted on firearms charges , has been the subject of months of investigations by Congressional Republicans, who have sought to find evidence that the president laundered international bribes through his son's business interests. To date, none of these investigations have gone anywhere, and attempts to impeach Biden have fizzled .

Watch the video below or at the link here.

Trump discusses Biden in interview with Sean Hannity www.youtube.com

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San Francisco Giants Urged to Trade All-Star Veteran

Jon conahan | 10 hours ago.

• San Francisco Giants

The San Francisco Giants enter the second half in one of the more interesting positions in all of baseball. Rumors suggest that if they manage to stay afloat, the Giants should be buyers at the trade deadline.

However, they're somewhat in the middle. Being stuck in the middle typically isn't ideal, but only 3.5 games out of the third Wild Card spot, they look to have a real chance of making the postseason.

If San Francisco wants, they could be buyers and sellers at the deadline. Teams have done that in the past, and while it's not always the best decision, it often works.

For example, if they don't like how Blake Snell looks when he returns from injury on Tuesday , he could be a trade candidate. If they were to move Snell, they could then look to add another, cheaper option on the mound.

They'd have to hope that whoever they add would be able to do so, but it's a possibility and something the Giants could think about.

Snell will hopefully look dominant in his first start since returning from injury, which should put an end to all trade rumors.

However, there are others on the roster who could be in the same boat in terms of moving and finding a cheaper replacement.

One of those is veteran Matt Chapman , as Jackson Roberts of ClutchPoints urged San Francisco to trade him before the deadline.

"And therein lies the problem. When it comes to deciding whether or not to trade Chapman, the Giants have to not only project where they will end up in the standings, but where Chapman's numbers will land and what that equates to in terms of his free agency prospects.

"Because if the market is any better than last season's all-time stinker, players like Chapman will be set up to make far more money."

Moving Chapman would be an interesting decision, but it's always possible, given that he's on a one-year deal. He has a player option in the offseason, which allows him to hit the open market again if he wants.

He's played better than expected, slashing .244/.327/.423 with 12 home runs and 24 doubles. His 118 OPS+ would be the best since the 2020 season if he keeps it up, which could mean that teams might be willing to buy high.

It's an interesting situation, and only the Giants can control it. If they play well heading into the deadline and hold a playoff spot, expect him to stay.

JON CONAHAN

Jon Conahan has been covering all major sports since 2019. He is a 2022 graduate of the Bellisario School of Journalism at Penn State University and previously played D1 baseball.

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How one family escaped North Korea in a rickety boat on the open sea

SEOUL — Hardly anyone has escaped from North Korea these past four years, since leader Kim Jong Un shuttered his country’s border with China in the earliest days of the pandemic.

But Kang Gyu-rin and her mother, aunt and a family friend are among the few. To do so, they used a perilous route that has become almost the only option for escape: by sea.

One night last October, the four boarded Kang’s rickety wooden boat — with a rudimentary pumping system for bailing out the water — and set out for South Korea. Or death.

“I was ready to die, so I wasn’t afraid,” said Kang, now 23. “We had to give it our best shot.”

Kang and her mother, Kim Myung-sook, told The Washington Post about their life during the covid era and their decision to flee by sea, offering rare insight into how North Korea has changed in the past four years. The women changed their names after arriving in the South because they are escapees and wanted to protect family members back home. They spoke to The Post on the condition that their new names be used.

North Korea, run by the totalitarian Kim regime for almost eight decades, has long been one of the world’s most reclusive and repressive countries, a dire place in which to live but an extremely difficult place from which to escape.

It was in the late 1990s, at the height of a devastating famine in the North, that waves of escapees started arriving in the South, almost all of them taking an overland route across the relatively porous border into China, then to Mongolia or down through Southeast Asia, where they could fly to South Korea.

Some 33,000 North Koreans had arrived in the South that way. But that stopped in January 2020, when Kim Jong Un slammed shut the borders and then erected new barbed-wire fencing and watchtowers — making it impossible for anyone to cross into China without permission.

Kim has now essentially ushered in a “zero escapees era,” human rights advocates say.

How we reported this story

North Korea has been tightly shut since the coronavirus pandemic began so accounts of what is happening inside the country are rare and valuable. To verify key parts of this story, our reporter corroborated it with human rights advocates who have met Kang and the other three on the boat, and through experts with informants inside North Korea, including in Kang’s home province.

North Koreans almost always adopt new names in the South, and many decline to have their photos taken for fear they will be recognized and their family members in North Korea will be punished. For that reason, we commissioned South Korean artist Mikyung Lee to illustrate this story for an artist’s impression of key moments as relayed to The Post by Kang.

While some North Koreans who were already outside the country when the pandemic struck, such as laborers sent to Russia, have arrived in South Korea since 2021, only 15 or so people have been able to flee North Korea and make it south, according to estimates from defector-support organizations. That number includes Kang and her family.

That makes their account extremely valuable. Yet North Korean escapees’ stories are notoriously difficult to corroborate because journalists can’t reach residents or officials who can confirm their accounts. Kang’s aunt and the male family friend who steered their boat declined to be interviewed.

The Post cross-checked Kang’s account with two advocacy organizations in Seoul that have interviewed her — the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights and Liberty in North Korea — and confirmed that key details were relayed consistently. The Post met Kang and her mother independently of the advocacy groups.

Julie Turner, U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, has also met with Kang and was struck by the lengths to which she went to escape.

“The desperation piece has stuck with me,” Turner said, noting that North Koreans are having to resort to boats. “People are still so hungry for opportunities that they’re looking at these much more treacherous routes.”

Escape route

now restricted

NORTH KOREA

Kang's escape

route by boat

SOUTH KOREA

The land route through China carried immense risks, including repatriation to North Korea — and extreme punishment — if caught. But in China, a network of brokers and activists helped North Koreans to safety. It was expensive and dangerous, but it was possible.

Escaping by sea is even riskier: Those fleeing must contend with border patrols on the coast and at sea, as well as woefully inadequate boats and unpredictable weather. Even seasoned North Koreans struggle to fish given the challenging conditions: Battered wooden “ghost ships” regularly wash up on Japan’s western shores, carrying the corpses of fishermen who have starved at sea.

Kang and her mother had heard of other families who fled on boats. It wasn’t until they arrived in South Korea that they realized none of those families made it alive.

If escapees make it to the South’s waters, they risk South Korean patrols mistaking them as hostile intruders — and potentially firing upon them.

The water route may not even last much longer, with North Korea erecting new fencing around its coastlines to try to stop people from accessing the sea.

But for Kang and her family, the sea was the only way out. And they were only able to make the journey because they lived near the coast and Kang had a boat because she worked in the fishing industry.

This is just one family’s story, but it is one that reflects just how difficult it has become for ordinary people to live in North Korea — and to escape it.

New, ‘suffocating’ pressures

Kang and Kim lived a middle-class life in South Hamgyong province on the east coast, although they were far from the border with China, where almost all trade happened. That didn’t matter much before the pandemic because the market economy had well and truly taken hold across North Korea.

But then came the border closures. Then crackdowns on food vendors and the markets that sustain the North Korean economy, they said. Their quality of life deteriorated sharply.

“We talk about how life felt hard in 2019 [before the pandemic], but now that we look back, those were the good years. It will be difficult to return to the way we lived then,” Kang said.

Items that used to trickle into the country from China became exponentially more expensive or disappeared, they said. The shortage of inventory showed Kang just how much her country depended on its northern neighbor, she said.

“Even sewing needles became 10 times more expensive. I wondered why, and of course, they turned out to be a Chinese product. I realized how little my country actually produces,” Kang said.

The Post cannot independently verify her claims, but South Korean officials and reporting from North Korea-monitoring websites have similarly reported on price hikes and cash shortages created by crackdowns.

“There needs to be a flow of products into the markets, either through production from North Korean companies or via China, but neither of those things were happening,” said Lee Sang-yong, director of research and analysis at Daily NK, a media outlet with informants in the North, including in Kang’s home province.

These pressures are “suffocating” residents who can no longer navigate the markets like they used to, said Kim, who is 54. She recalled the famine of the 1990s and the capitalist smarts it took for people to survive it — making, selling or buying items they could trade for food.

“Now, it feels unsustainable even for the savviest,” Kim said. “The government is taking over [the markets], but they’re not giving us anything else in return.”

Kang recalled the summer of 2022, when the North Korean regime first publicly admitted to a coronavirus outbreak . North Korea then claimed it eradicated the “fever” virus in just three months, and that just 74 “fever” patients — about 0.0003 percent of its population — died, which would make North Korea’s covid fatality rate the lowest in the world.

Experts believe it is an undercount of the true toll of the spread of the virus, especially given North Korea’s lack of coronavirus testing kits and vaccines. Kang believes she and nearly everyone she knew caught the virus then. The mismatch between the regime’s version of events and the reality on the ground sowed another seed of distrust.

Kang’s recollections, together with accounts from some other recent escapees, are early indicators of potentially profound shifts that took place inside North Korea during the pandemic, said Sokeel Park of Liberty in North Korea.

The extreme restrictions on movement, coupled with acute food shortages, have torn up the implicit social contract that enabled people to fend for themselves if the government can’t provide, Park said. This raises bigger questions about how North Korean people view their government, he said.

“Different escapees are telling us independently that North Korean people’s sentiment and mentality evolved significantly during the pandemic in a more disaffected and skeptical direction,” Park said.

A chase, then a welcome

After Kang dropped out of college during the pandemic to make money, she bought the boat with her mom’s help — her mother had $4,000 in savings, a fortune in North Korea — to start a small fishing operation.

Business was brutal, she said. Diesel was expensive, the boat kept needing repairs, she had to pay workers even when there was no seafood to catch.

She kept track of inventory and revenue in bookkeeping notebooks, which she brought south and showed a Post reporter. They confronted her with a grim reality: The business was not sustainable.

She’d always known the boat could help her escape one day. But she started seriously planning her escape last spring, mapping out her steps and routes, and put her plan into motion the evening of Oct. 22, 2023.

Preparing for their journey, they packed water, dried noodles, bread, rice and sleeping pills — which they agreed to take if it became clear they would be caught by the North Korean coast guard. They preferred a peaceful death to execution or prison camps.

The waves that night were unexpectedly high, lifting their boat off the water at each crest and crashing it down at each trough, Kang and Kim said.

Still, they were making progress. They were about two hours from crossing the maritime border. Then they spotted a North Korean patrol ship heading toward them.

“They just kept flashing, flashing, flashing their lights. They wouldn’t let up,” Kang said. “I wondered, is it time for the pills? My heart was beating so much.”

Kim, who was comforting her seasick sister, said all she could do was pump out water and pray for survival: “I hoped that the heavens did not send us on this journey just to die.”

It’s unclear why the patrol vessel did not intercept them. The moment they reached the maritime border, the lights disappeared, the patrol boat heading back north, they said.

It was about 7 a.m. on Oct. 24 when blowfish catcher Lim Jae-gil spotted Kang’s boat. He had heard warnings on the radio transmitter that North Korean law enforcement vessels were heading south, and immediately knew this was the boat they had been chasing.

He had never seen anything like Kang’s boat in more than a decade of fishing off South Korea’s east coast, about 35 miles away from the border. It looked like it should have been sent to the scrapyard long ago, Lim, 62, said in an interview.

Lim called the authorities while he steered toward it. When he got close, one of the North Koreans asked: “Where are we?”

“Sokcho, in Gangwon province,” Lim replied. “Are you from North Korea?”

The North Koreans nodded. “Well done,” Lim said.

The four boarded Lim’s boat and waited for the South Korean coast guard. Lim offered the arrivals cigarettes and water. The North Koreans had packed plenty of both, but Kang said they accepted because they wanted to experience the taste of South Korean cigarettes and water.

The man took one puff of the cigarette and flicked it into the sea. “It was so much weaker than the cigarettes we were used to,” Kang recalled.

As for the water: “It was the same. It’s water,” she said, laughing. “But everything felt so interesting at the time.”

A new life in the South

Like many North Koreans, Kang learned about life in the South through its television programs, which she started watching as a teen. It was illegal, but everyone did it.

Kang is among the cohort of North Koreans who grew up after the famine, learning to navigate capitalism and access products from China and South Korea — including TV shows and movies that opened their eyes to life in a rich and free society. They have become more exposed to the outside world and disillusioned with their own government, experts say.

“We don’t believe [the propaganda],” Kang said. “Maybe our parents did way back when but I don’t know any of that myself. … I’ve seen lots of dramas, and I knew life in North Korea was really awful.”

It’s because of this generation’s awareness of life outside North Korea — and the threat this knowledge poses to the long-term survival of the regime — that Kim Jong Un has cracked down on foreign influence, from fashion to slang. In December 2020, North Korea adopted a law “rejecting reactionary ideology and culture,” according to state media .

Tightening controls, down to her earring choices, made Kang feel like a “kindergartner,” she said.

Kang no longer has to worry about such demands. She wears gold-colored jewelry and colored contact lenses, and has dyed her hair reddish-brown. Her smartphone is constantly buzzing, and her drink of choice — like most every other South Korean Gen Zer — is iced coffee.

Now, Kang is preparing for college and hopes to one day study abroad. Her mother, who is looking for a job, worries about the long hours her daughter spends studying.

They brought almost nothing with them from North Korea. But Kang has her bookkeeping notebooks, their pages damaged from the waves, and looks at them to motivate herself through hardships. She also has a photo she took at a studio in the North. Its caption reads: “To a life that is always filled with exciting and happy times.”

About this story

Story by Michelle Ye Hee Lee. Illustrations by Mikyung Lee. Story editing by Anna Fifield. Design by Andrew Braford. Design editing by Joe Moore. Map by Samuel Granados. Copy editing by Kim Chapman.