Paul and Rachel Chandler were heading for Tanzania from the Seychelles in their 38ft yacht, the Lynn Rival.
Their route would have taken the couple, in their 60s, near Somalian waters which are notorious for attacks on ships and smaller boats.
Two Royal Navy ships are now looking for their vessel.
The Foreign Office said it was urgently investigating after the ship reportedly sent a distress signal. It has not been heard from since.
The last message on their extensive travel blog, posted on Friday morning, reads simply: "Please ring Sarah."
Two days earlier they wrote that they were saying farewell to the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean - and were bound for Tanzania more than 500 miles away.
"We'll be at sea for eight to 12 days, maybe 14 as we are now getting into the period of transition between the south monsoon and north monsoon, so the trade winds will be less reliable," they said.
"We probably won't have satellite phone coverage until we're fairly close to the African coast, so we may be out of touch for some time."
Elsewhere the couple, from Tonbridge, Kent, who have been sailing around the world for several years after selling up in the UK - wrote of "the Somali pirate problem" that delayed other voyages to Tanzania.
An American intelligence memo said a merchant ship was stormed 113 miles from the Lynn Rival's last position just 19 hours earlier.
"Pirates armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades opened fire on a bulk carrier. The pirates took hostage 26 crew members."
A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We are aware of the report. We are investigating urgently."
Light winds in the Seychelles region in recent weeks has given rise to a spate of hijack attempts as pirates make use of the fair conditions.
An Indian cargo ship was hijacked off the coast of the Seychelles last Wednesday, and its more than two dozen crew members have not been heard from since.
It was also reported that several Spanish trawlers working near the Seychelles are employing former British soldiers as armed guards.
In June, 64-year-old Briton Malcolm Robertson was killed in front of his wife by pirates and his body thrown overboard to sharks off the coast of Thailand
Their route would have taken the couple, in their 60s, near Somalian waters which are notorious for attacks on ships and smaller boats.
Two Royal Navy ships are now looking for their vessel.
The Foreign Office said it was urgently investigating after the ship reportedly sent a distress signal. It has not been heard from since.
The last message on their extensive travel blog, posted on Friday morning, reads simply: "Please ring Sarah."
Two days earlier they wrote that they were saying farewell to the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean - and were bound for Tanzania more than 500 miles away.
"We'll be at sea for eight to 12 days, maybe 14 as we are now getting into the period of transition between the south monsoon and north monsoon, so the trade winds will be less reliable," they said.
"We probably won't have satellite phone coverage until we're fairly close to the African coast, so we may be out of touch for some time."
Elsewhere the couple, from Tonbridge, Kent, who have been sailing around the world for several years after selling up in the UK - wrote of "the Somali pirate problem" that delayed other voyages to Tanzania.
An American intelligence memo said a merchant ship was stormed 113 miles from the Lynn Rival's last position just 19 hours earlier.
"Pirates armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades opened fire on a bulk carrier. The pirates took hostage 26 crew members."
A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We are aware of the report. We are investigating urgently."
Light winds in the Seychelles region in recent weeks has given rise to a spate of hijack attempts as pirates make use of the fair conditions.
An Indian cargo ship was hijacked off the coast of the Seychelles last Wednesday, and its more than two dozen crew members have not been heard from since.
It was also reported that several Spanish trawlers working near the Seychelles are employing former British soldiers as armed guards.
In June, 64-year-old Briton Malcolm Robertson was killed in front of his wife by pirates and his body thrown overboard to sharks off the coast of Thailand
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