Posted on 01/13/2012 5:24:12 PM PST by Pan_Yan
The Royal Navy has captured 13 Somali pirates onboard a sail boat in the Indian Ocean, the Ministry of Defence has said. A combined Nato-led counter-piracy force successfully intercepted the vessel which was known to be operating off the Somali coast.
Both Royal Fleet Auxiliary Fort Victoria and United States Ship Carney manoevered into position around the dhow and encouraged her to comply with the British and American forces.
After the boat refused to cooperate, a Royal Navy helicopter with Royal Marine maritime snipers was deployed to provide various clear warnings to the suspects to stop.
The boat refused to comply until Royal Marines in speedboats approached and successfully boarded it, forcing the suspects to surrender.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.sky.com ...
Too bad it wasn’t the Russians that got ‘em.
Seriously, time to start sinking their boats and moving on. Almost like a burial at sea. They’re sailors, so they’d like that, right? :)
Street punks giving pirates around the world a bad name. Ya’ take yer’ chances... and yee’ walk the plank. Davy Jones locker for the lot of em’.
Where’s my ma deuce, especially when I need one?
We should have turned Somalia into a glass factory years ago. Like, after they dragged our troops in the streets.
Make them walk the plank
In fact, Law of the Sea, Admiralty Law, and International Law allow a shipboard court proceeding and punishment, if the enforcing Naval entity is signatory, so it can be done.
I'd be happier to read that "x" pirates had met their maker in Davie Jones' Locker...
Kill the rascals
“Street punks giving pirates around the world a bad name.”
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All we here is about Somali pirates, but they seem to be just a small part of world piracy.
There was a special on TV, a week or so ago, about pirates.
(History Channel, I think)
It would scare the H out of anyone sailing in international waters.
The waters around Indonesia and Malaysia are teeming with
pirates, attacking anything that floats, including supertankers.
On smaller ships and boats, they kill the crew and take the whole ship.
International law forbids the ships from having any firearms or weaponry for protection.
There was, however, a case of a Dutch cruise ship, 100 miles off the coast of Somalia that thwarted pirates.
After receiving a lot of small arms fire and RPGs.
They turned on a new sound machine that could direct
loud piercing sounds at the pirate boat.
It was enough to make the pirates turn and flee.
So they endangered the lives of a boarding team, when one 5 inch shell would have sufficed.
That is one sorry-looking pirate boat. It might have been easier for one of the navy ships to just cut it in two, a la PT-109.
A close pass would have swamped them. No fuss, no mess.
So, what will become of the pirates? What happened to the pirates we caught last week and loaded onto one of our carriers? Do we have a “catch and release” program?
The Straits of Malacca have been a problem area for years. I remember setting anti-pirate measures for night transits through there over 20 years ago when I was on an LKA, which looks more like a merchant than a warship.
West Africa, especially Nigeria has long had problems with pirates at various anchorages. The Caribbean not so much for large merchants but can be hazardous for small craft. Same with the Gulf of Thailand.
The “sound machine” is an LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device.) We had one on board when we were off Somalia in 2005-6. I’ve heard it can be effective but we never had the opportunity to use it.
The pirates may have met their match. Notice the other FR thread concerning the Royal Navy being in the top 100 employers for gays. The pirates may get nervous when they hear, “ Let’s swab the poopdeck mates!”
“The Straits of Malacca have been a problem area for years.”
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Much of this special report concentrated on the Malacca straight.
It is sad that merchant ships are not allowed to adequately
defend themselves.
Fortunately, I do not hear much of piracy here in the Philippines.
But instead, we shipped many of them to Minnesota. And more are coming.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2832781/posts
Just being neighborly, and all that...
I haven’t heard of pirates there specifically either but if I was a yacht guy I’d probably be extra careful around Mindanao and Sulu.
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