NEWS - Nautilus International

July 2010 | nautilusint.org | telegraph | 25
SAFETY AT SEA
‘We’re getting
tougher’
Close comfort: a naval ship provides a protective escort for
a merchant vessel off Somalia Picture: NATO
An unprecedented multinational task
force is succeeding in the fight against
piracy, top brass at NATO’s Northwood
base near London tell the Telegraph...
M
‘I find it intolerable that
a few punks with AK47s
can hold the world to
ransom in the way that they are
doing right now.’
Commodore Hans Christian
Helseth is passionate about his
job as deputy chief of staff operations
at the Maritime Component
Command Headquarters at NATO
Northwood, overseeing the multinational
naval counter-piracy
task force.
‘Presently, 17 ships and 357 seafarers
are being held hostage,’ he
says. ‘What would have happened
if they were 17 civilian airliners?
The world would never accept it,
but because these are Filipino,
Indian and Romanian seafarers
the world does not pay interest to
their fate.’
But, he warns, there are solid
economic reasons why the world
should treat piracy more seriously.
‘Around 95% of world maritime
trade travels through nine
choke-points — including the
Panama and Suez Canals, the
Straits of Hormuz, Gibraltar and
Malacca, the Gulf of Aden and the
Turkish Straits — and if we do not
fight and eradicate piracy in
Somalia, it will spread.’
Tankers carry millions of barrels
of oil per day through some of
these choke-points, Cmdre Helseth
points out, while 50% of the
world’s containers pass through
the Indian Ocean.
When the VLCC Sirius Star was
hijacked off Somalia, oil prices
went up 1.4% overnight, and when
the Greek tanker Maran Centaurus
was seized in November there
was a 3.3% increase in oil prices
over the following two days.
The battle against piracy is
therefore vital, Cmdre Helseth
says, but it is also an increasing
challenge. ‘Distance from the
shore does not mean safety any
more. The attacks have moved
beyond 60E, 1,400nm from the
coast. It is a massive task for us to
combat.’
Operation commander Rear
Admiral Peter Hudson underlines
the scale of that task — a sea area of
some 1.5 sq miles. ‘It can take two or
three days’ steaming to get a ship
to an incident,’ he points out.
The operational area is getting
even bigger to reflect the way
in which the pirates have moved
further out to sea, and Admiral
Hudson says additional air surveillance
and a dedicated replenishment
tanker would be welcome.
The statistics of seized ships
and seafarers might suggest that
the unprecedented international
naval operation has not been successful.
But Cmdre Helseth points
out that the figures also show that
the number of disrupted piracy
operations has risen dramatically.
‘There were 24 disruptions in April
alone,’ he points out, ‘and many of
these were close to the shoreline.’
M
Only three ships have
been hijacked in the
Gulf of Aden’s internationally
recognised transit corridor
since July last year, he notes,
while more than 29,000 have got
through safely. Naval forces have
broken up more than 70 pirate
action groups off the east coast
of Somalia and processed around
500 suspected pirates over the
same period.
But chief of staff Rear Admiral
Hank Ort, of the Dutch Navy,
stresses: ‘The main message I
would have for the shipping
industry is that this is still a very
real threat, even though we have
been increasingly successful in
disrupting the pirates.
‘It is therefore vital that we
spread the message and make
Task force commanders Rear Admirals Peter Hudson, of
the Royal Navy, and Hank Ort, of the Dutch Navy
sure that all ships that pass
through the dangerous areas prepare
properly. The industry needs
to take a certain amount of
responsibility and play its part,’
he adds. ‘It is all about vigilance
and awareness.
‘If the ships are better prepared,
it is more likely they will
have a good lookout and therefore
get an earlier warning of suspicious
activity,’ he points out. ‘It
really does make a big difference.’
M
Northwood is home to
the NATO Shipping Centre,
which coordinates
the organisation’s contribution to
counter-piracy operations, alongside
the EU Naval Force, the US-led
Combined Maritime Forces, and
the individual contributions of
countries such as Malaysia, India
and China.
The centre runs on a 24/7 basis,
with staff including up to five MN
masters who liaise with merchant
vessels and pass on the latest
information and advice. Staff deal
with around 200 reports a day
and have been pleased by the
recent increases in the proportion
of commercial vessels that use the
reporting systems and adopt the
guidelines for reducing the risk of
attack.
But there is still a hard core of
around 20% of ships that sail into
the high-risk areas without following
the recommended precautions.
Most recent hijackings had
involved relatively ill-prepared
and cheaply run merchant ships
that failed to adopt best practice
or routeing advice, says Cmdre
Helseth. ‘It would not matter so
much except these ships are still
generating ransoms, funding
piracy and making it worse for
everyone else,’ he adds.
‘The progress so far has been
great, although there is much
more that can be done,’ Admiral
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Hudson stresses. ‘We have every
ambition of closing down as much
of this piracy as we can, but in
terms of reducing risk it has to be a
joint effort.’
And he warns: ‘It will be
extremely difficult without significant
progress ashore in Somalia
to limit the risk. Therefore, by
adopting best practice and working
with the military, merchant
ships can significantly lower the
danger of attack.’
M
Ultimately, however, he
is realistic about the
limitations of what can
be achieved by the naval forces.
‘The solution here is not charging
around the Indian Ocean in
expensive destroyers,’ he says. ‘It
has to be a Somalia-based solution
on land. We don’t want to
be here in 300 years’ time, but
it is going to be difficult to fix
Somalia.’
At a time when western governments
are looking at massive
cuts in public spending — including
defence budgets — the naval
commanders are aware of the economic
pressures facing their mission.
‘I would turn it around, and
say that we cannot afford not to
continue it,’ argues Admiral Ort.
‘The price of pulling out would be
much higher.’
Indeed, he suggests, there is a
strong possibility that the threat
will continue to grow as more and
more young men look to piracy as
a lucrative way of life in a country
where the average annual income
is barely US$600. ‘What you see in
Somalia now, and it is particularly
worrying, is that society and
the economic infrastructure is
changing. Whole villages have
become dependent on pirate
activity and a whole generation
sees pirates as heroes and piracy
as the only way to be someone…’