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This was originally posted on July 2, 2008 but with more and more pirate attacks in the news I have updated it and think it deserves another look.  This comes in response the recent hijack of a Malaysian ship in the Gulf of Aden and is the fourth attack in the area this month.

Piracy has long been a problem in the Gulf of Aden, where one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, connecting the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, passes by lawless Somalia, which has been without an effective central government since 1991.

IMB live piracy map 2008

This map is brought to us by the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre, a division of the International Marine Bureau.  It is compiling a live Google map mashup of all reported pirate attacks for 2008. So far this year Nigeria has seen the most pirate incidents fallowed by Indonesia and Bangladesh.

What is the IMB?

IMB’s main task is to protect the integrity of international trade by seeking out fraud and malpractice. For over 20 years, it has used industry knowledge, experience and access to a large number of well-placed contacts around the world to do this: identifying and investigating frauds, spotting new criminal methods and trends, and highlighting other threats to trade.

The information gathered from sources and during investigations is provided to members in the form of timely advice via a number of different communication routes. It lists the threats and explains how members can reduce their vulnerability to them. Over the years, this approach has thwarted many attempted frauds and saved the shipping and trading industry many millions of dollars.

What is the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre?

A major part of the IMB’s work to make shipping safer involves assisting in the suppression of piracy and armed robbery against ships around the world.

In 1992, the escalating number of piracy incidents led to the establishment of a Piracy Reporting Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Its job is to raise awareness of piracy hotspots, detail specific attacks and their consequences, and investigate incidents of piracy and armed robbery at sea and in port. Another role entails working with national governments on a range of initiatives to reduce and ultimately eradicate attacks against ships.

The Centre, managed by the IMB, has enjoyed considerable success over the years and has made huge strides towards meeting its objectives to reduce piracy and in increasing general awareness of the problem.

Past Years Maps

2007: Google maps mashup of pirate attacks

2006: Google maps mashup of pirate attacks

2005: Google maps mashup of pirate attacks

IMB also has a Weekly Piracy Report that can be found HERE.

Looking at the piracy chart for 2008 got me reminiscing about recommending routes through the eastern Arabian Sea , Somalia coast, and Gulf of Aden.

Our directive was to work with the Captain to assure a safe voyage. However, like the Captain, we had no way of knowing whether a pirate attack would occur during a voyage. The coast of Somalia has been a high risk area for piracy as long as I can remember. So, even without a weather-related reason, we often would acknowledge a Master’s intended route which remained well off the coast and added sometimes hundreds of miles. Many times, these routes would travel east and north of the island of Socotra.

There was an exception — the summer months and the Southwest Monsoon. During projected gale and storm sw-lies in the western and central Arabian Sea, recommended routes going westbound from the Indian Ocean toward the Suez Canal would remain south of the monsoon core and the highest waves in the central Arabian Sea. However, this route presents a navigational issue (mostly piracy-related) once the route nears the coast of Somalia.

Captain’s choice during the summer: Do I want to avoid the coast of Somalia (potential pirates) and face more rolling on a more northern route? Another problem… If the vessel passes east of Socotra, will the Captain be able to safely steer the vessel west-bound into the Gulf of Aden during a monsoon event?

In this case, strange as it may sound, heavy weather might be working in the Captain’s favor. Are the pirates desparate enough to try and board a moving merchant vessel during gale or storm conditions?

Many Captains chose the improved weather to the south during the summer, passed near the eastern coast of Somalia, then adjusting heading to sail well off the nothern coast of Somalia after passing Cape Guadafui.

Have any gCaptain readers out there has faced similar choices?

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This Post was written by Brad Snook, Meteorologist. Brad spent 13 years recommending routes and forecasting seas and swells for merchant ships around the world. He know lives with his family near gCaptain Headquarters in Morro Bay California. You can read his previous articles HERE.

(Note: This article was originally published in Dec 2007)

We have taken a look at piracy in the Strait of Malacca and showed you how criminal organizations scrub a stolen ship’s documents now we turn our attention on finding and repossessing these vessels.

The primary company in recovering hulls in North America is New Orleans based VessEx. Here is a clip about VessEx from

Only a few repo men possess the guile and resourcefulness for such a job. One of them is F. Max Hardberger, of Lacombe, La. Since 1991, the 58-year-old attorney and ship captain has surreptitiously sailed away about a dozen freighters from ports around the world.

“I’m sure there are those who would like to add me to a list of modern pirates of the Caribbean, but I do whatever I can to protect the legal rights of my clients,” said Hardberger, whose company, Vessel Extractions in New Orleans, has negotiated the releases of another dozen cargo ships and prevented the seizures of many others.

His line of work regularly takes him to a corner of the maritime industry still plagued by pirates, underhanded business practices and corrupt government officials, waters the Aztec Express sailed right into.

The saga began in 2003 when the vessel’s Greek owner died and his company did not keep up payments on a $3.3-million mortgage. Read More…

(link via BoingBoing)

Also read Capt. Hardberger’s article for Marine Money Magazine

Here is the video:

 

 Ship Repo Man: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Our friend Bob Couttie of Maritime Accident Casebook asks; Pirates, A Doom With A Q? He writes:

Earlier this week the US and France introduce a draft UN Security Council resolution co-sponsored by the UK and Panama, to combat piracy along Somalia’s nearly 2,000 mile coastline. Is it enough?

Faster than you can say “dead man’s chest” Somali pirates bounced back like Chuckie. As a dozen of their number, having snatched the yacht, Le Ponant, faced three square meals a day awaiting the pleasure of a Paris court after their capture by French forces, what’s generically referred to as the Somali Marines hijacked the Panamanian-flagged Fiesty Gas,  seized a Spanish tuna boat, Playa de Bakio, shot-up a Japanese tanker, Takayama and attacked a South Korean bulk carrier Not to be outdone, their south east Asian brothers boarded and robbed the Thai-flagged Pataravarin 2 in the second attack in Malaysian waters since January.

A bright spot is the imprisonment for life of 11 pirates by a court in Puntland. 

 

You can read the entire article HERE then head over to his main blog page and read the article; Cosco Busan Detainees - Where are the T-Shirts?

In this modern age with AIS tracking and global satellite coverage you may ask how a pirate can get away with stealing an entire ship. Occasionally referred to as Seajacking this video shows how legal ships are stolen and redocumented to appear legitimate.

Seajacking and phantom ships:

Related Video:

• Chinese Pirates (part 2 of above series)
• Maritime Security Roudtable