October 16, 200718 yr From Navy Times Report: Pirate attacks up 14 percent The Associated Press Posted : Tuesday Oct 16, 2007 10:52:50 EDT KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Maritime pirate attacks worldwide shot up 14 percent in the first nine months of 2007 from a year earlier, with Somalia and Nigeria showing the biggest increases, an international watchdog said Tuesday. While Africa remains problematic, Southeast Asia’s Malacca Strait, one of the world’s busiest waterways, has been relatively quiet, the International Maritime Bureau said in its report. A total of 198 attacks on ships were reported between January and September this year, up from 174 in the same period in 2006, the IMB said. It said a total of 15 vessels were hijacked, 63 crew members kidnapped and three killed. In the July to September period alone, there were 72 incidents, up from 47 in the same period a year earlier, marking the second straight quarterly rise in attacks, the London-based IMB said through its piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. “If this current trend continues, it would appear that the decline in piracy attacks since 2004 has bottomed out,” it warned. Indonesia remained the world’s worst piracy hot spot, with 37 attacks in the first nine months of 2007 — but that was an improvement from 40 in the same period a year earlier, the IMB said. Attacks rose rapidly in Somalia to 26 reported cases, up from eight a year earlier, it said. Somalia’s U.N.-backed government has been struggling to assert control over the country since it accepted the aid of Ethiopian soldiers to chase a powerful Islamic alliance from power. Nigeria also suffered 26 attacks so far this year, up from nine previously. IMB director Pottengal Mukundan urged ships to stay as far as possible from the coasts of Somalia and Nigeria, which remained dangerous with large numbers of violent kidnappings. “The level of violence in high-risk areas remains unacceptable. Pirates in Somalia are operating with impunity, seizing vessels hundreds of miles off the coast and holding the vessel and crew to ransom, making no attempt to hide their activity,” he said. Only four attacks were reported in the Malacca Strait this year, compared with eight in the same period in 2006, thanks to increased cooperation between states straddling the waterway, the IMB said.
October 29, 200718 yr mmmm.....Piracy Tom Oliver and I talked about this once a very very long time ago. Kinda depends on what you use I suppose.... I'd find myself a 500 tonne coaster, fit a four inch gun aboard her - tastefully hidden by a fake deck house - and man her with 10 or twelve cutthroats. "You are Captain Trapp of the S.S. Charon and I claim my five pounds." For practicality, my nod would go to an armed trawler-type ship. Ubiquitous enough to be 'expected' almost anywhere and with enough junk 'expected' on the upper decks to conceal some sort of rapid-fire nastiness. The most important thing would be to have plenty of small, fast boats (zodiacs or seariders) for boarding the luckless after dark and enough rapid-fire unpleasantness (or at least one heavy[ish] gun - 40mm or maybe even 76mm) to make sure that no-one got a radio squark off. That could lead to your whole day being spoiled. I applaud an imaginative bunch of piratical types simulating seafarers, give high marks to the selection of an "Ubiquitous" trawler (for its ubiquity, a sub [and I know someone here is going to suggest it <shakes fist>] of a sub is just a dead giveaway for someone up to no good) but some obstacles come to mind.... Capt. Charon & his merry crew sortie from their hidden island base in their jaunty pirate trawler "Cacafuego" to seize... 1) Lotsanissan Maru, an auto transporter with a "really valuable" cargo of 400 of the new Maximas steaming across the Pacific at about 24kts. "Stop or we'll fire" Lotsanissan Maru's 12 man crew, below decks watching skin flicks, hears naught, keeps on steaming.... Bang, bang, bang, bang...Lots of 4.7' fire, big old hulk keeps on truckin'.... "We're gonna board the bastard!" 12 Zodiacs can't catch up...4 try to come alongside but are swamped by wake somewhat rougher than one from a waterski boat...2 make it alongside, but volunteers with rubber cups on hands and feet have grave problems crawling up 40' vertical steel side of ship, fall back in water.... Lotsanissan Maru sails on un-noticing, a few holes in side of its eleven ga-jillion GRT hull, sprinkler system putting out a handful of burning cars, 12 man crew still below decks watching skin flicks. Capt. Charon, running low on fuel, decides to capture a tanker, sights supertanker, SS Mary Jane Humble-Socony, fully laden, steaming along at 19.5kts and catches up... But can't come alongside because of monster turbulence created by BFSH (big f***ing square hull), fires many shots, accomplishes much broken glass on bridge of tanker, many 4.7" holes in sides, oil spewing out over Cacafuego's filthy old pirate topsides (pirate ships always had filthy topsides and no razors for the crew), all that nasty old Bunker C which can only be ignited with preheaters, time and effort. Tanker skipper comes out on bridge wing, flips the bird and activates bow thruster sucking Capt. Charon and his mangy crew under and down the tubes. To top it all off, his radio antennae all screwed up, the tanker CO pulls out his trusty satellite phone (that new handheld all-in-one antenna model for 500 bucks from Sharper Image), calls the dispatcher who contacts the nearest representative of the TransPacific Multi-Lateral Pirate Catching Force which sends out a helo, rescues surviving pirates from water, flies them to Singapore where after a mercifully brief trial they are two-blocked to the yardarm to the sound of a bosun's pipe, muffled drums and mournful sea chanties like "Roll your leg over, oh, roll your leg over....". Twitching a little, the pirates are heard to say...."Choke, gurgle, aaaaah s***!" as they pass on to pirate's heaven, wher'ere that may be... And before anyone starts <evil monkey glares and points fingers at all of you...> Old Capt. Huevos-Immensos who chose a submarine as his ride, is still trying to catch up to his first target, MV Carnival Empress of Bogside, whose 22kts over the ground is a little better than he can manage with the diesels running all ahead Bendix and taking blue water over the periscope shears. Bet the pirate business ain't what it used to be....I'll cya when I get back from Oz. Later D
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