Second Attempt by Pirates to Capture American Ship

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Speedo66

Speedo66

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You may remember the last attempt to capture an American crewed ship where the Seals on the deck of an aircraft carrier sniped the pirates as the pirates held the captain on a lifeboat.

Pirates tried again to capture the same ship. This time there was a security team on board. The team returned small arms fire, and used an acoustical device designed to cause hearing pain to repel the pirates.

I wonder if the training schools for ship's officers, i.e., NY Maritime College, The US Maritime Academy, etc., will start including small arms training as part of their curriculum.

Story about the attempt here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/world/africa/19pirates.html?_r=1&hp
 
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Civilians with firearms defending themselves successfully? No police or military handy, out of 911 reach? Say it isn't so! :D
Big question, where did the "security team" come from, company hired mercs, trained crewmen?
 
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Merchant ships are hiring security teams quite often recently to prevent piracy attacks..

We have a team from Secure West on board my ship right now, 4 British former-military, and 4 Ghurka former British military, armed with 12ga shotguns, and a variety of ammo.
 
Oh, and Small Arms Training is offered to officers who are a part of the AMO (American Maritime Organization)

The problem is that most companies still don't allow us sailors to bring our own weapons, and most companies don't want to deal with the liability of having ship-owned weapons... Hence, the hired Security team...
 
I'm sorry, but if an insurance company is going to insure a ship going through those waters, they should demand the crew have small arms training and be properly armed. The security forces are a start - because it's not like these are sophisticated attacks - a handful of poor farmers in a dingy with some AKs and RPGs maybe? And who are forced into it by warlords anyway - the whole thing is just sick. But I'm glad to see the Alabama was able to fight them off.
 
I have never been so happy to be an American as I am after reading this:

However, Roger Middleton, a piracy expert at the London-based think tank Chatham House, said the international maritime community was still "solidly against" armed guards aboard vessels at sea, but that American ships have taken a different line than the rest of the international community.
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Seriously, even the most anti gun American pantywaist would be proud at that. Here we have the deranged British nutjobs, who are so mentally ill when it comes to self defense that it's pitiful. A particular British individual, who clearly lives in fantasy land, is so mentally deranged that he advocates for ships to be defenseless when going into pirate infested waters, EVEN AFTER this success of armed self defense. This fairy head's only justification for insanity revolves around "everybody's doing it." He then unwittingly gives us a profound compliment by essentially saying that "the international community remains hard headed and irrational, but America has gone it's own way." Than YOU sir for the compliment!

Our U.K. brethren are just sad cases. They're like a mental patient pacing their cell and pretending they're on a beach. They're so far gone mentally that I think that many of them are ripe to be brought back to reality. They are openly defending a hilariously preposterous position and I have noticed that when people do this publicly, they are actually searching and begging for someone to give them a reason and the guts to come back to reality.
 
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OK, did any of you pick up on this? According to published info on a roadrunner news blurb (taken from press sources), the pirates called to shore to some other pirates (one who allegedly spoke to reporters) and this "spokesman" said the attacking pirates said they were in trouble with an American ship (alluding to taking return fire, I imagine), and then, allegedly, were not heard from again. Is it possible the freightliner SUNK them and we are not being told this in the news? I could just see a small "security force" lobbing some .50 from a Barrett into the small craft, and them having a problem making it back to shore. No need to "arrest" them if that happened. :D I'm just reading between the lines, but I hope we get a full report of whether the bad guys made it to shore. Also reported was that the freightlinner was receiving contact from a US naval or US coast Guard surveillance aircraft, who could have warned them about an approaching boat, or even monitored the whole episode. I'll bet we are not being told the whole story because it isn't "politically correct".
 
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Many times, “discretion is the better part of valor.” Assuming you successfully thwarted an attack why would you want to advertise it? Sure, if it were a contract operation, you might use the incident to acquire new business, but you would certainly have no reason to broadcast it to the news media.
 
Many times, “discretion is the better part of valor.” Assuming you successfully thwarted an attack why would you want to advertise it? Sure, if it were a contract operation, you might use the incident to acquire new business, but you would certainly have no reason to broadcast it to the news media.
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If that were true, why would they have released anything about it?
 
We are required by International Maritime Law to report all incidents of piracy and their outcomes to various maritime law agencies... This is not privileged information, and can be picked up by the media.

I sincerely doubt the ship's first call was to CNN.... CNN most likely contacted the ship several hours after the ship reported the incident to UKMTO and the like.
 
It's nice to see that at least some American companies are sensible enough to have security guards on board now. I mean how difficult can it be to repel some stupid pirates? It's not like they are well organised or use some kind of useful tactics... Just look at this article : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8294858.stm ;) :D
 
"Somali pirates released 36 crew members and their Spanish fishing vessel, the Alakrana, on Tuesday, but the Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, declined to comment on reports that a ransom of nearly $3.5 million had been paid for the Alakrana and its crew. “The government did what it had to do,” he said."

WOW. they actualy paid a ransom? that is the dumbest thing i'e ever heard. im never getting on a spanish ship
 
WOW. they actualy paid a ransom? that is the dumbest thing i'e ever heard. im never getting on a spanish ship
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Hate to tell you, but with these pirates, it's pay the ransom or lose your 30-million dollar ship, and everyone on board.

There's no "rescuing", there's no waiting them out.

The harbor most of these ships are taken to is a war zone, and even the military ships aren't going there.

Of course they paid the ransom. I'm glad for the families of my fellow seafarers that they did.

60-70% of the ships that are Taken get the ransoms paid. The other 30-40% are owned by small companies that can't afford the multi-million dollar ransoms. These ships aren't seen again, some crews are sent ashore and sent home, some crews are killed.

It's appalling, I know. The world should treat this threat as an act of war, and respond accordingly.

The sad part is, that until an American ship (The Alabama) was taken, practically nobody in the US even knew this was an issue. This has been happening for YEARS.
 
60-70% of the ships that are Taken get the ransoms paid.
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And that is why the piracy continues. It is feeding on itself.

I gotta say, these pirates are pretty brazen though, attacking the Alabama again after their "associates" go their arses handed to them by the US Navy. Then again, maybe their "bosses" on land kept them ignorant of this little detail.
 
And that is why the piracy continues. It is feeding on itself.
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What would you suggest? Not paying? Letting thousands of seamen be murdered and ships scuttled or scrapped by the pirates?

There is no doubt that something needs to be done, but saying that the companies shouldn't pay is ridiculous. It all comes out of insurance anyway, as long as the companies were smart enough to insure against piracy.

It's high time that we declare an all out war on piracy and attack them at home instead of waiting for them to attack us. A naval blockade of the entire Somali coast with checkpoints for any vessel wanting to leave the nation's waters is what is needed....

I doubt that the NATO Naval forces have enough ships to spare to do something like this, but it's the only way to stop it.

Then again, as soon as the blockade ends, the piracy would start up again.

I'd love to hear recommendations from the people who say we shouldn't pay the pirate's ransoms.
 
the reason piracy is working out well for them is the lack of uniform consequences for their actions.

the"golden age"of piracy was ended by the willingness of the civilized world to hunt the pirates down sink their ships and kill the survivors.extermination ends the pest problem.
 
willingness of the civilized world to hunt the pirates down sink their ships and kill the survivors.extermination ends the pest problem.
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I think this is exactly what happened wth ths 2nd attack. Anybody else?
 
"60-70% of the ships that are Taken get the ransoms paid."

that's appauling. Granted, i may sing a different tune if i were one of the ones captured but we need to look at the big picture. The US has a firm policy that we dont negotiate with terroists (well we pretend to, but we arn't letting anyone go for real) I'd imagine this why so few US ships are attacked.) we need to look at the big picture here. if the international community decides they arent going to pay a ranson no matter what, i can gaurante you will see a very steep decline in the ammount and type of ships attacked. Tragicly, this will mean the deaths of many good men, but in the long run many more lives will be saved.

treating these attacks as an act of war as you suggest is an even beter idea, but i think it would be more difficult to get countires to respond in kind as we should, to end these attacks.

im, thinking that if enough US ships are attacked, eventualy we will hae no choice but to attack these harbors with a naval/arial assault at the very least. im sure the situation is more complicated then i understand it to be, but thats what i think for right now.
 
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At the point a ransom is paid there is not other choice. Its after the fact they have the ship and crew.....somewhere.

If the company wants ther ship and crew back they pay.
 
The reason few US ships are attacked is because there are very few US ships. We lost our dominant position in international maritime commerce after WWII. It's a long and sordid tale, but basically we went from moving most of the world's cargo to a tiny domestic fiefdom under the Jones Act. Most of the international shipping now is flagged in some port of convenience, owned by Asian interests, captained by a European, and crewed by a motley assortment of men from obscure places. The ransoms are really for the freight, not the men. They get the crews out for PR reasons.

With US Flag vessels and US crews the equation is very different. Any American in those waters needs to understand that if the animals get ahold of him, he's going to be killed no matter what money is paid.
 
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The reason few US ships are attacked is because there are very few US ships. We lost our dominant position in international maritime commerce after WWII. It's a long and sordid tale, but basically we went from moving most of the world's cargo to a tiny domestic fiefdom under the Jones Act. Most of the international shipping now is flagged in some port of convenience, owned by Asian interests, captained by a European, and crewed by a motley assortment of men from obscure places.
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Ding Ding Ding.. We have a winner :)

There are plenty of ships that are crewed by Americans. These are not, however, US vessels, technically.

The ship I'm on is owned by a US company, Has US officers, Philipino crew, our real "home port" is in Baltimore, however we are flagged under the Marshall Islands, and our lawful Home Port is Majuro. This is done for budgetary reasons, as well as insurance reasons.

You don't hear about US ships being attacked because any ship that has a US flag usually isn't going around the world.. US Flagged ships usually stick to the American Continents.
 
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