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Navies use deter and disrupt tactics to beat piracy - By Bryan Reyes "Conscious of how hard it is to catch a pirate in the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean, Western navies have now taken to lying in ambush close to pirate dens on the Somali coastline. Operating just a few miles from shore, warships intercept the pirate skiffs as they head out to maraud in the shipping lanes. It is called deterring and disrupting, and one Royal Navy commander fresh back from a five-month deployment off the Horn of Africa says it is working. “That’s what we were trying to do the whole time along this coast, was to stop them getting out,” says Jonathan Lett, commanding officer of the Royal Navy frigate HMS Montrose." LLOYD’S LIST, 21 December 2010, p 4 Co-operation delivers successful results - By Brian Reyes "For a snapshot of international cooperation in the fight against Somali piracy, look no further than the first run-in between a group of pirates and the Royal Navy frigate HMS Montrose. The frigate, part of a Nato taskforce, was patrolling its sector in the safe corridor off Somalia when it received a VHF message from a North Korean vessel Mi Rae. North Korea’s relations with the wider world are thorny at best, but at sea, distress signals are treated the same regardless of where they come from. The frigate dispatched its Lynx helicopter and rushed to the scene, arriving to see the pirates throw their ladders and weapons over the side as they spotted the warship." LLOYD’S LIST, 21 December 2010, p 4 Citadel use pays off for Beluga Fortune crew - By Brian Reyes "The Royal Navy frigate HMS Montrose was one of the first warships to respond to a distress signal from the German vessel Beluga Fortune when it was hijacked by pirates last October. Last week, the frigate’s commander praised the actions of the ship’s crew and said the citadel tactic they employed had proved highly effective. When Beluga Fortune’s 16-man crew spotted pirates approaching during a voyage through the Indian Ocean, they shut down the bridge, cut off the fuel supply and locked themselves into their safe room. Once on board, the pirates were unable to reach them or get the ship moving again. The Somalis knew too that they were being monitored by navy intelligence planes and that warships were rushing to the scene. “Beluga Fortune’s best management practices were incredibly good,” says Jonathan Lett, the commanding officer of HMS Montrose." LLOYD’S LIST, 21 December 2010, p 4 Wave of attacks hits shipping off Nigeria “Nigeria’s offshore oil industry suffered a series of armed attacks towards the end of the year, in one of which a seafarer was shot. Early on 22 November, a group of 10 armed men boarded the 46,491dwt product tanker NS Spirit about 30nm off Lagos, owner Novoship reported. Its statement noted: ‘The intruders opened fire with automatic weapons. The crew managed to hide themselves in a shelter. Since the pirates left the vessel no attempts to attack the tanker again have been registered.’” SAFETY AT SEA INTERNATIONAL, January 2011, p 13 Pirates seek more ships “Attacks continued unabated on shipping in the Gulf of Aden and the western Indian Ocean in November. A Panamanian-flagged chemical/products tanker was seized about 860nm east of Somalia on 11 November, according to EU Navfor. The 24,105dwt Hannibal II was en route from Pasir Gudang, Malaysia, to Suez with a cargo of vegetable oil when it was hijacked at a location ‘considerably closer to India than it is to Somalia.’” SAFETY AT SEA INTERNATIONAL, January 2011, p 13 Justice tried and found wanting “Many pirates are caught, few are convicted. SASI finds out why it is so hard to bring hijackers to justice.” SAFETY AT SEA INTERNATIONAL, January 2011, p 30 Violent robberies at Port Said spark fresh security concerns - By David Osler and Colum Murphy "Egypt has seen an unprecedented outbreak of violent robberies against ships at anchor in Port Said, with two such cases documented in the last few weeks, it emerged yesterday. The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) stressed that these are the only known incidents in the country in 2010, and that it is too early to regard the development as the start of a trend. One longstanding expat shipping source warned that stealing in general has been on the rise in the country. While he had not previously come across robberies from ships in many years of residence there, petty theft of cargo by stevedores was relatively commonplace, he said." LLOYD’S LIST, 22 December 2010, p 1 Somali pirates widen their reach - By David Osler "Problem becoming more extensive as ransom demands for release of a vessel nears $10m barrier. In 2005 Somali piracy finally hit the big time. It became more sophisticated on every measure, including the type of vessels targeted, the weaponry employed to do so and the sheer expanse of water covered. Fast forward to the present day, and we have a reached a situation in which, at the time of writing, there had been 198 reported attacks on merchant shipping by Somali pirates in the year to date. Use of private military contractors has increased dramatically. There are no official statistics on this one, but a rough estimate by one professional in the sector believes that there are armed personnel on board around 15% of the 20,000 or so vessels that transit the Gulf of Aden every year." LLOYD’S LIST, 23 December 2010, p 10 7
High ransoms put Asian owners at risk - By Colum Murphy "Hong Kong and Chinese shipowners are now “more vulnerable” to pirate attacks as a consequence of high ransom payouts by Asian shipowners, a leading Hong Kong-based security expert has said. Steve Vickers said recent, huge ransom payments by Chinese and other Asian shipowners had “jacked up rates ridiculously” for releasing a ship from pirate control from around $1m to $10m. “It is regrettable that it went from talking tough to paying money rather quickly,” he said." LLOYD’S LIST, 24 December 2010, p 2 Shipowners urged to rethink use of armed guards, “With piracy increasing, armed guards are said to be a worthy investment. Graham Freeman is business development director of Elite Maritime Protection Services (EMPS), a three-year-old company that provides both armed guards and escort vessel assistance to commercial ships. He says 75% of Elite’s client base is from the shipping industry. “We meet with owners and operators and they want to know about armed guards as a last minute resort. That urgently needs to change.” FAIRPLAY 16 December 2010, p 22 US tries to put the squeeze on piracy, “The deterrent effect of pirate trials remains open to question. With the conviction on 24 November of five Somali nationals for attacking a US warship, a federal jury in Norfolk, Virginia, attempted to send a message halfway around the world that the US will hit back hard against pirate attacks on its vessels.” FAIRPLAY 16 December 2010, p 23 Private navy’ is close to kick-off- by Jim Mulrenan “Merchant ships could soon pay for a safe escort through pirate-infested waters. Sean Woollerson of the Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT) insurance-broking group says there are still issues to overcome but the key task of securing government and military support to give the project “legitimacy” is almost there. The concept is that shipowners will buy the armed-escort service packaged with seven days of war-risks cover from Ascot Underwriting’s Lloyd’s syndicate 1414, backed by Chartis, the insurer created from the rebranding of American International Group. They will therefore not need to pay the normal additional premium required to transit pirate-infested waters.” TRADEWINDS, 10 December 2010, p 3 Piracy preparation begins earlier as danger zone grows - By John Drake “Indian waters now statistically more dangerous than Gulf of Aden as pirates extend range beyond Somalia. Earlier in the year the Indian government issued guidelines warning of the risk posed by Somali piracy in the region. These guidelines designated an imaginary line stretching from Salalah in Oman to Male in the Maldives. The area of greatest risk, according to the guidelines, lay southwest of this line. However, pirate activity over the past two months has rendered this warning obsolete. Apart from a series of attacks clustered off the coast of Kenya, a large number of attacks in the Indian Ocean have taken place northeast of the line. Many have taken place in waters close to India and the Maldives.” LLOYD’S LIST, 17 December 2010, p 9 Fight against piracy is critical to world trade – By Wally Mandryk “Protecting vessels in the Gulf of Aden and off the Horn of Africa benefits more than seafarers alone. With no early end in sight to continued piracy activity, Lloyd’s List Intelligence has analysed the profile of shipping and international seaborne trade moving through the Gulf of Aden and the waters off the Horn of Africa. LLI We have attempted to identify which national interests benefit most from keeping the waterways free and secure, and conversely whose interests are put at risk by the threat to safe passage posed by pirate attacks on merchant ships.” LLOYD’S LIST, 17 December 2010, p 11 Public perception of piracy problems must be a primary priority – By Colum Murphy “The shipping industry needs to step up its efforts and “use every trick in the book” to educate the general public on the dangers facing the world’s seafarers, said Peter Cremers , chief executive of Hong Kong-based shipping services company Anglo-Eastern, writes Colum Murphy in Hong Kong. “We need to be all over the media, get them on board to help us get rid of piracy,” he said. Mr Cremers comments were prompted by the huge media response to the recent release of British couple Paul and Rachel Chandler.” LLOYD’S LIST, 17 December 2010, p 2 Monsoons factor into pirate risk “Seasonal weather variations are influencing the operational movements of pirates in the Indian Ocean. The new year is likely to bring only limited relief from Somali pirates for ships operating in the Indian Ocean but the Gulf of Aden is set to remain a year-round battleground. It will be more than six months before ship crews can feel at their safest in the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean, however, as the two distinct regional monsoon seasons “dictate where the pirates can operate”, a report claims.” TRADEWINDS, 17 December 2010, p 40 8
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