By Peter Schworm, Globe Staff
Two Massachusetts Maritime Academy graduates are among the 20 crew members on board a cargo ship seized by Somali pirates today, the first attack on a US-flagged vessel in recent memory.
The Pentagon said the crew of the ship was believed to have retaken control of the vessel, The Associated Press reported, yet one US official later said the captain of the vessel was still being held captive.
Shane Murphy, a 2001 graduate of the Bourne college who lives in Seekonk, is the chief officer on the Maersk Alabama, his father Joseph Murphy said this morning. Joseph Murphy, a Mass. Maritime professor, said officials at the Danish shipping company told him earlier this morning that the crew has not been harmed. The captain of the vessel was identified as Richard Phillips, 55, of Underhill, Vt., a 1979 graduate.
“It’s a very difficult time,” Murphy said in a phone interview. “But I do know that he is alive.”
Murphy said he learned about the hijacking, which occurred nearly 300 miles off the coast of Somalia, at about 6:30 this morning, and immediately called officials at Maersk Line, one of the world’s largest shipping companies. Officials there said the ship was taken just before dawn after a chase that lasted more than three hours, Murphy said.
The 17,000-ton vessel, which was carrying tons of emergency aid to Mombasa, Kenya, tried to outrun and evade the pirates but was eventually outflanked and boarded, Murphy said.
“There was a massive amount of gunfire,” Murphy said. “They tried evasive maneuvers, but once that [the gunfire] started, that was it.”
The crew is not armed, he said. The crew notified the Navy before it was captured, but the nearest warship was more than 300 miles away.
Pirates have seized six vessels in the past week and now hold 14 ships with 260 crew off the coast of Somalia, according to the International Maritime Bureau.
Commander Jane Campbell, a spokeswoman for the US Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, said that it was the first pirate attack “involving U.S. nationals and a U.S.-flagged vessel in recent memory.” She did not give an exact timeframe.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the Obama administration was monitoring the incident closely and “assessing a course of action.”
“Our top priority is the personal safety of the crew members on board,” Gibbs said.
Joseph Murphy teaches an anti-piracy course at the college which has recently received substantial media attention, and Shane Murphy visited the class last month to speak with students about the escalating threats of pirates in the Gulf of Aden.
Shane Murphy often travels in the dangerous waters off the coast of Northeast Africa and was once just a few miles from a hijacked vessel, his father said.
In a Globe interview last month, Joseph Murphy spoke of how the courses he teaches at the academy have a special meaning for him because his son constantly faces the danger.
Shane was onboard a commercial ship sailing through the Gulf of Aden last April when pirates attacked a Japanese oil tanker a short distance away. That was one of 293 pirate attacks last year, a record number that included 49 hijackings and almost 900 hostages, according to the International Chamber of Commerce’s global maritime bureau.
Eleven were killed and 21 reported missing and are presumed dead.
Richard Gurnon, president of Mass. Maritime, said the college was stunned to learn that two of its graduates were on board, and were hoping for the best.
“It [the anti-piracy class] moved very quickly from being an academic exercise to something very personal and very painful,” he said.
Modern-day pirates often launch small, fast-moving motorized craft from a larger ship, typically one disguised as a fishing vessel. The smaller boats can easily overtake a slow-moving freighter. These tactics allow pirates to range far from land, with some hijackings occurring more than 400 miles out at sea.
Material from the Associated Press was included in this report.
Link:http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/04/two_mass_mariti.html
How fitting. Any ship named "Bainbridge" owes Mussleman pirates whatever it can manage to dish out to them.