by Mak

Created on: April 19, 2009

When we think of shipping piracy, first impression comes in our mind is an ugly looking man with long hair, one eye blinded screaming and firing from a gun that is an antique now a days. From the story books and movies we have created the impression and probably it was true for ancient days sea piracy. The scenarios are very different now, the pirate are well equipped with most modern automated arms as well as communication equipment. They have planning and strategies for capturing their targeted ships.

Relevant maritime authorities has marked various region of the maritime lanes as piracy prone areas and they publish annual reports of maritime piracy to highlight shifts in piracy trends in various piracy prone maritime zones. In the past Malacca straits along Indonesian coasts were designated for frequent piracy, where pirates used to board vessels using high speed boats and loot valuables from crew members. Off late Somalian coasts along Gulf of Aden has become well known to many non-mariners as well from increased stunning piracy incidences. Aims of the Somalian pirates are not just robbing the valuables, they would hijack the ship along with crew members to release only after getting very huge amount of ransoms from ship owners. It is well understood if there is any law enforcing authorities in Somalia they are quite incapable of dealing with rising sea piracy.

Multinational naval forces has been deployed in the region but in reality it is very difficult to monitor such a vast open sea area, through which more than 100 ships passing per day. There are hundreds of fishing boat is in this area and practically it is not possible to identify which is a genuine fishing boat or a pirate boat in disguise. Suddenly the the boat will start6 chasing a merchant vessel in the vicinity and will take over control before any naval ships could reach there. Once the control is taken over and crews are taken as hostage, very less could be done by the naval ships due to the fear of life being lost on board.

For the past years some international measures like ISPS (Internation Ships and Port facilities Securities) has been made mandatory. Main purpose of ISPS is to avert terrosit attacks on ships ships in port facilities but would be equally applicale to detect early pirate boats as well as taking deterring measures by the crew memebrs onboard. From the recent piracy newses it cold be assumed beyond doubt that ISPS alone is not enough for deterring piracy attacks.

Shipping companies,

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>