SSG No 20 - Shipgaz

The captain of the Danica White tells the story:
A very special voyage
Captain Niels Peter Nielsen was
captain of the Danica White
during the 82-day capture off
the coast of the more or less
lawless country Somalia in
East Africa. SSG paid a visit to Captain
Nielsen’s home in Denmark to hear his
own words on the very special voyage.
“The Danica White was held mainly by
gentlemen soldiers off the coast of Somalia.
Shortly after coming onboard they
behaved nicely apart from some nasty
hints of execution. They had their own
cook, their own provisions and when we
ran out of cigarettes, they even provided us
with cigarettes from the stocks ashore”, the
captain says.
The voyage started at Sharjah, U.A.E,
with a cargo of drilling equipment bound
for Mombasa in Kenya. The Danica White
was hi-jacked by a group of 15 persons on
the open sea some 210 nautical miles off
Somalia. Captain Nielsen was on the bridge
that Friday morning, when there was suddenly
a loud bang and later some voices
talking fast. Within seconds a number of
heavily armed and very young soldiers were
in the wheelhouse demanding all valuables
from the crew. They immediately altered
course in order to reach the Somalia coast.
”They were rather friendly when they
realised that we did not make any resistance”,
says Niels Nielsen. ”There was one
English speaking person in the group, who
was between 20 and 30 years old”. ”The
youngest solider claimed to be 16 years
old, but he looked more like 13.”
First 24 hours
The first 24 hours the Danica White,
now with a crew of 15 plus the original
five, steamed toward the shore without
any interference. Late Saturday afternoon
the American destroyer USS Carter Hall
turned up on the horizon and began to call
the ship.
”I was instructed not to make any contact
with the American warship”, explains
Niels Nielsen. ”They have nothing to do
with us in our waters”, said the leader
of the hi-jacking group. The American
destroyer sailed around the Danica White
from 15:00 to about 21:00. During this
time they constantly tried to contact the
ship on the VHF, and ”alerted” the Danica
White by firing warning shots over the bow
and over the stern.
”The hi-jackers became really afraid that
they would be attacked and took their
positions in the bridge-wings with the rest
of the Danica White crew as shields, in
case …”
The youngest solider
claimed to be 16 years
old, but he looked
more like 13.
Niels Nielsen was worried even from his
position in the wheelhouse. Luckily the US
warship decided not to launch a boarding
team. Instead they fired on the three boats
used by the hi-jackers, at that moment
being towed by the Danica White.
Desperation
”The efficient US guns managed to hit
all three boats (one large and two smaller
ones), and one of the ABs was ordered to
cut the towing line. This changed the whole
situation”, says Niels Nielsen. ”The hi-jackers’
plan was that they would leave the ship
at about 20 nautical miles from the shore
with their loot, nothing more, according to
their original plans and confirmed by their
conversation during the days onboard.”
The loss of three boats made the hi-jack-
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ers rather desperate as the boats were hired
from somebody else, and now they had to
cover the losses. So instead of leaving the
Danica White they were forced to take the
ship and claim a ransom to gain money to
pay for the boats.
The voyage for the hi-jackers seemed to
be rather well-planned, as they arrived with
their own cook and their own provisions.
”The only inconvenience was that the
Somali cook worked all day and only left
the Danish cook some two-three hours per
day for his cooking for the crew”. The two
ABs on the Danica White soon became
friendly with the Somalians and started
eating their food. Niels Nielsen describes
the Somalians as pigs in the sense that they
never cleaned anything and after eating
their supper on the aft deck it looked like
a rice field.
At anchor
On Monday, the third day of the hi-jacking,
the Danica White was anchored 1.7
nautical miles off the coast of Somalia,
some 26 nautical miles south of Kobyo,
and just outside a private port.
”The ship was equipped to be anchored
with 110 tons of bunkers onboard as well
as sufficient provision taken onboard at
Sharjah, including 20,000 cigarettes”, says
Niels Nielsen. The same day a note of ransom
was mailed to H. Folmer & Co, the
managing owner of the Danica White, for
a sum of USD 1.5 million. Then they started
waiting for an answer.
”The mate, the cook and the two ABs
remained in their own cabins onboard,
while I was more or less forced to bunk on
the bridge”, says Niels Nielsen. ”My bedroom
was not used, but my saloon accommodated
five-six Somalians eating, smoking
and chewing khat, which was brought
onboard in large quantities after arrival on
the coast”.
The hi-jackers or soldiers from the
Somalia Marines were onboard in a nineday
turn.
During the 82 day stay at anchor, the
South West Monsoon started to pass the
area. This forced captain Niels Nielsen to
14 sCAnDinAViAn sHiPPinG GAZette • OCtObeR 26, 2007
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