Posted on 07/07/2011 10:21:46 AM PDT by bananaman22
Over the last few years, thanks largely to Hollywoods pirates of the Caribbean franchise, maritime buccaneers have acquired a highly romantic image.
The reality of modern piracy is far removed from the images peddled by Tinseltown. In the most recent nautical attack, Somali pirates on 6 July attacked the 900-foot Brillante Virtuoso, which was carrying over 141,000 tons of fuel oil from Ukraine to Qingdao, China, 20 miles off the Yemeni port of Aden. The vessels 26 crew members abandoned ship after the attackers fired an RPG round into their sleeping quarters.
According to ship manager Central Mare Inc., the vessel and its cargo were recovered, despite the fact that the rocket-propelled grenade started a fire on board.
While piracy is a worldwide annoyance, its epicenter is now the failed nation state of Somalia, where brazen hijacking of vessels in the Indian Ocean as far away as the Seychelles have in the past decade netted the maritime miscreants billions of dollars. Though little noticed, tankers have been targets of opportunity for both pirates and terrorists for some time.
While media attention has focused on Somalia, the problem is global. On 16 January 1999 the 131,654 DWT-ton French-flag tanker Chaumont was attacked by pirates while transiting the Malacca Straits Phillip Channel in Indonesian waters near Singapore. The attackers tied up the crew and the fully loaded tanker sailed at full speed through one of the world's busiest shipping lanes for 70 minutes without anyone at the helm.
In waters nearby the site of todays attack, in October 2002 the 299,364 DWT-ton French tanker Limburg was rammed by an explosives-laden boat off the port of Ash Shihr at Mukallah, 353 miles east of Aden. A crewman was killed and the double-hulled tanker was breached. The impact on the Yemeni economy was immediate, as maritime insurers tripled their rates. Al-Qaida later claimed the attack. Full article at: Piracy: A Growing Global Menace
bmfl
The heyday of Caribbean piracy ended when public hangings became a common fixture at all major ports.
String up a few of the thugs in Aden, Somalia ports and other points around the Indian Ocean and you'd get a similar result.
They knew how to deal with ‘em once.
Captain Kidd and Calico Jack Rackham were hanged by the law. Blackbeard was beheaded and his head hanged on a yardarm after the British navy caught him.....
And Commodore Decatur taught ‘em all a lesson, too.
Anyone need a fluent Spanish-English bilingual who would make for excellent security personnel in the Latin American theatre (and can direct others in that regard)? My landlord loves me. NO ONE bothers the land here. PM me.
We didn’t have a problem with piracy during the Cold War when we had a 600 ship navy.
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