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The M/V BISCAGLIA was taken over by pirates last month. Of interest was that the ship had onboard a three-man security team that once the ship was lost jumped overboard on the chance that they would be picked up by a nearby helicopter.

Here are a couple photos that were taken by another helicopter that had initially come to the aid of the ship but it was all over by the time they got there, other than the fate of the unsecured security team.

The photos were found on the UK’s Mirror site under the story on the event: “Heroic Brit trio take on Somali pirates before escaping into sea” They are reposted here in the interest of seafarer safety.

- MV Bisaglia fires water cannon to try and repel invaders -

Can you see the LRAD in the photo above? I can’t.

- Pirates hold crew at gunpoint – Mike & Rocky watch from above -

There appears to be a broken window in the photo above.

- The pirates do not know the ex-soldiers are still free on the deck above -

- Gun-toting pirates force the crew inside the bridge -

There appears to be a shattered bridge window in the photo above.

- Ex-British soldiers up on the deck preparing to jump in the sea -

Go read the story for a summary of the event as provided by the head of the security company.

Keep in mind that they were not able to defend the ship with firearms. They had an LRAD device (See gCaptain’s summary: LRAD – Video Of An Amazing Anti-Piracy Device) but according to the articles the pirates were not deterred at all by it.

“We thought it would make the pirates back off, but they just laughed. It was a total waste of time.” – Mirror, UK

I wonder about that since according to the video linked above, the device is currently in use in Iraq. I would think that any problems such as this would have shown up by now. Didn’t they test this thing on themselves before boarding this ship? I would think it would be a good idea to understand what they are doing to the people they aim the thing at, at least at a lower setting. (The highest settings reportedly can cause permanent injury.) Keep in mind that this device was claimed to have  ended the pirate attack against the cruiseship SEABORNE SPIRIT. (See more video here: LRAD: Long Range Acoustic Device)

One last thing. Take a look at the top photo. All that water being sprayed over the side looks nice, but all those running hoses surely kept the water pressure on each low. The point of using a fire hose against pirates is that the high pressure of the water stream is something that you can’t advance against. As it is a fire hose under full pressure should have three people manning it in order to safely control it. The spray from the hoses above does not seem to have enough pressure to do the job. (Now it could be that the fire pump is not running at full pressure at the time the photo was taken.)

Cross posted on my blog here.

Link:
Heroic Brit trio take on Somali pirates before escaping into sea – Mirror, UK

Previous:
Pirate Attack Photos – ZHENHUA 4
Pirate Attack Photos – M/V KAPITAN MASLOV
On Defending Unarmed Merchant Ships Against Pirates

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