Starting off on the third qualifying race, we cross the entrance of Cowes to head down to the walled city (and port) of St Malo. Lying off the north-western coast of France, St Malo is famous for its concentration of sea food restaurants, the highest in Europe, and its history. The city became notorious as the home of the corsairs, French privateers and sometimes pirates. They worked for the King of France by attacking the ships of France’s enemies. In France they did not need to fear punishment for piracy—being hanged—as they were granted a licence as combatants, the Lettre de Marque or Lettre de Course, a document which legitimised their actions to the French justice system and which they hoped gave them the status of a war prisoner in case they were ever captured.

In common with privateers of other nationalities, however, they were often considered pirates by their foreign opponents, and could be hanged as pirates if captured by the foreigners they preyed on. The activities started in the Middle Ages when Jean de Châtillon, a bishop, gave Saint-Malo the status of rights of asylum which encouraged all manner of thieves and rogues to move there. Nowadays it is a little more sedate in the city.

However, while the issue of pirate activity is considered something that happened long ago and in far-flung parts of the globe the reality is that it continues as a modern day practice. The recent rescue of the Richard Phillips, the American captain of the Maersk Alabama cargo ship off the coast of Somalia, showed that pirating continues around the world and is becoming a mini-industry.

Some estimates claim that the practice costs shipping companies and governments up to £16 billion a year, with the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) saying that in 2006 there were 239 attacks, 77 crew members were kidnapped and 188 taken hostage but only 15 of the pirate attacks resulted in murder. In the following year the attacks rose by 10% to 263 attacks, with over a third involving the threat and use of guns.

In some cases, modern pirates are not interested in the cargo and mainly take personal belongings of the crew and the contents of the ship's safe, which might contain large amounts of cash needed for payroll and port fees. In other cases, the pirates force the crew off the ship and then sail it to a port to be repainted and given a new identity through false papers often purchased from corrupt or complicit officials. Pirates are also keen to ransom shipping they take charge of. The bemusing part is how does someone pay a ransom to these people?

When a ship's owner discovers their vessel has been hijacked, the first port of call is to a specialised lawyer who deals with kidnaps and ransoms at sea. This is not to say that all hijacks are the same but the proliferation of attacks off the coast of Somalia in the past year means a pattern has been established where the pirates see it as a business. They may be armed and dangerous but money is their chief motivation.

Paying a ransom is not illegal under British law, unless it's to terrorists. And while governments have failed to clamp down on hijackings, a precedent of paying up has been established. So, as soon as pirates set foot on a ship they know pay day is only a matter of time.

Negotiations tend to begin with astronomical demands before the price is bargained downwards. The average hijack lasts two months before payment is made, with the going ransom rate between $1m-$2m. Agreeing a ransom is hard enough but delivering the money leads to an even bigger headache. The ransom for the Sirius Star oil tanker, hijacked last year appeared to have been dropped from the air. But normally paying a ransom means delivering a huge wodge of cash by sea to the hijackers, who will have anchored off the coast of northern Somalia.

Once a drop-off boat and crew have been hired and the weather negotiated, there's another big hurdle: more pirates.

Navigating the high seas with a stash of money is not for the fainthearted. Dodging the pirates is only one difficulty - another is to make sure the good guys know what you're up to as well as it's vital that your vessel is not going to be looked at as a pirate vessel, as you might get taken out by a naval vessel.

All these specialist services don't come cheap in the UK. Factor in the cost of lawyers, risk consultants, security advisers, as well as the fixed overheads, and delivering the money to the pirates can lead to doubling the ransom amount. Last year Somali pirates pocketed an estimated $50m. Not all of this is going to British lawyers, negotiators and security teams but a fair chunk of it will be. It has led to some criticism, particularly in Spain, that London is profiting from crime.

And what happens to the tens of millions of pounds that the pirates make? All the kidnap specialists who deal with the Somali pirates say it's a purely criminal enterprise. But some believe there is a darker link - between the pirates and the radical Islamist group al-Shabab. Claims are made that the pirates will pay a percentage of the ransom to al-Shabab - as much as 50 per cent in areas where the group is in control.

So the passage of international trade could well be fuelling international terrorism through the payment of ransoms. Both the Americans and the French have taken a tough stance in the seas off the African coast, in order to protect ships from their countries. Maybe a few of the French were descended from the privateers in St Malo.