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How To Talk To A Pirate

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 29, 2008

An Indian warship destroyed a suspected pirate vessel Tuesday off the Horn of Africa. It was the second time in a week that India has used force to fight piracy off the eastern coast of Africa.

Enough saber-rattling. Sink a ship. Now there's a language pirates can understand.

Nearly two dozen countries have joined forces to patrol Somali waters in response to the growing number of pirate attacks on commercial ships. But the pirates have only become more brazen, targeting larger vessels. Last Saturday, pirates hijacked a 1,000-foot Saudi oil tanker, the Sirius Star, which is carrying upward of $100 million in crude oil.

All told, more than 90 ships have been hijacked off the Horn of Africa this year. Ransoms paid to free the ships could reach $50 million by the end of the year.

This has caused much hand-wringing in government circles, and some sober decisions by the firms that ship through the region. Some have decided to reroute their ships all the way around the Cape of Good Hope. That could add 12 to 15 days, at a cost of $20,000 to $30,000 per day, to each trip. Better that than have your ship and crew while away the days and weeks in some pirate cove.

This is a delicious story - Pirates of the New Millennium! The piracy, though, has become a real economic problem.

The international patrols seem to be having little impact. Pirates have responded by moving their raids further offshore. In effect, they've created a much larger field of play. The Sirius Star was captured 450 nautical miles off the Kenyan coast, southeast of Mombasa, in the Indian Ocean - a body of water so vast that naval forces can't provide a blanket patrol.

So it looks like the shipping firms have a decision to make: avoid the region altogether or arm their ships to fend off direct attacks.

There are some creative ways to do that. According to the International Maritime Bureau, a chemical tanker fought off pirates armed with automatic weapons by releasing foam from fire hoses into the waters around the ship. In 2005 a cruise ship used a Long Range Acoustic Device, capable of causing permanent ear damage to fend off a pirate attack on Somalia's coast. Or you can do as India did.

Enough with the saber-rattling.

Sink a ship.

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