If you are the owner of a shipping company, and your ship’s routes go anywhere near Africa, then you should be hiring armed security to protect your ships and crews. To not defend your boats, is pathetic and damn near criminal. I say criminal, because you are purposely sending people into harms way, without giving them adequate protection. It is stupid and this is not taking care of your people. What this is called, is putting more value on money and minimizing liability, and putting zero value on the lives of your crew, and that is criminal in my book. The security companies and consultants that continue to promote the concept of ‘no weapons’ on ships, are pathetic as well. It is terrible advice and it is not protecting these crews and boats, and it is advice that only caters to the financial goals of these companies. Ship captains need to speak up as well, because your crew is depending on you to do everything in your power to protect them.
The only winner in this whole deal, are the pirates. They have completely exploited this weakness in the shipping industry, and the ineffectual maritime strategy. They are thumbing their noses at us all, and I see them continuing their wonderful business strategy. It works, and they are making some good money–why should they stop? pffft.
I also believe the current maritime strategy to combat these pirates, is completely lacking. What good is naval security, when it is 100’s of miles away? What naval strategist thought that this was an adequate method of protection? It would be like sending a principle out in his car in the worst areas of Iraq, with no PSD team, and telling him to call when he is in trouble. I wouldn’t do this on the roads of Iraq, and I wouldn’t do this off the coast of Somalia. The Gulf of Aden is clearly dangerous, and certainly requires armed security on each boat. If anything, the security on each boat could allow enough time during the fight, for a Quick Reaction Force to come to the rescue. That’s if a naval QRF force could close the distance fast enough. But really, how embarrassing if this is the best strategy folks can come up with?
Either way, both the naval strategy and the shipping company strategy is not working, and the pirates are still able to do their thing. Put a fully armed Maritime Security Detail on each boat and make this happen. And if there are issues with being armed while going through various country’s waters, then post a ship in international waters that can fly these MSD teams on to the boats when the time is right.
And these MSD teams should be adequately armed and trained to handle this stuff. That means having something bigger than a Glock 19 or a smoke grenade on the boat. I am talking about something that has reach and can sink a boat. Do the math, and let your imagination go with it. I have mentioned several weapon possibilities, and the time is over for messing around. How many more boats and crews are we going to allow to be taken by these clowns? Pathetic I say. –Matt
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Somali pirates find US ship _ and a fight
By CHARLES J. HANLEY
04/08/09
The equatorial sun had just passed high noon Wednesday when a text message flashed on reporters’ cell phones in Nairobi: 17,000-ton boxship seized 400 miles off Somali coast.
The informants, a local Kenyan seamen’s group, then added this startling note: All 20 crewmen were American.
The tropical seas off Somalia had grown treacherous with pirates in recent years. In 2008, the seaborne marauders stormed and seized a record number of commercial vessels, a giant Saudi supertanker among them, though never an American crew.
The high-seas hijackings, generating tens of millions of dollars in ransoms for the pirates, had eased off early this year, as a U.S.-led international naval force aggressively patrolled the Gulf of Aden. When they managed to mount attacks, the Somali pirates were left in ships’ wakes, foiled nine out of 10 times.
It was a lull during which Shane Murphy, a veteran of east African sea lanes as first mate of the U.S.-flagged freighter Maersk Alabama, returned home to talk to a class at his alma mater about this 21st-century scourge.
He told the Massachusetts Maritime Academy students he thought the pirates “knew better than to go against the American ships,” one recalled.
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