A question of pirates or sea robbers
January 3rd 2007 19:00
A modern day pirate
Piracy today is probably more prevalent than it was back in the notorious days of Captain Kidd and Blue Beard. If only for the fact that there is more commercial and recreational shipping out there on the ocean. The opportunist can make a quick killing (in the literal sense) and the well planned and executed heist can net millions to the gangs.
Firstly I must explain that if you know that the people that are attacking your yacht have just put off from the coast abeam of your position they are sea robbers. You know where they are from, if however they are well out to sea and you don't know which country they are from then they are pirates. Small conciliation if you are going to be banged on the head, gang raped and then set adrift in a shark infested sea.
Often it is an opportunity that tempts the local fisherman to attack your boat. He is poor, has had bad luck fishing and you just happen to be sailing by. Usually a carton of cigarettes and a couple of bottles of scotch will see them on their way. Unless they also feel a bit randy, in which case grin a and bear it! The official information to Australian travellers in pirate strewn areas is not to carry firearms, try and talk your way out of a situation and try to travel in convoy. Good luck.
A tanker carrying one hundred thousand barrels of crude oil at an open market value of forty five dollars a barrel is worth four and a half million dollars. This is not a big tanker but it is a big haul for a pirate gang. These days he hacks into a shipping company computer or pays for information at source. He knows the timetable, route, size of the crew and position of his target well in advance. The ship is crewed with a minimum crew and the owners don't want any firearms on board. A simple job then of coming along side in a high powered rib, throw a grappling hook or two over the side and clamber on board at the head of your thugs.
The ship is rerouted often to a rendez vous at sea with a larger tanker that then pumps out the fuel from the victim. The prize can be sailed to another port and painted with name changes and resold or used in another heist. Often it has its seacocks opened and sunk with the crew left to fend for themselves. Sometimes the crew is killed, sometimes humanely set adrift in lifeboats and sometimes the crew can work in with the pirates.
Good quick money for someone with the goolies to do it. It really is big business these days and the navies of Singapore, Australia and other Asian nations are patrolling as much as they can but the seas are too big and the venture too lucrative to have much effect on putting a halt to it.
I don’t know what the punishment for the crime is these days. Once it was a matter of "string 'em up boys" if they were caught but now a simple minded drug smuggler is more likely to get strung up or shot where the international pirate may get time behind bars, if he is unlucky enough to be caught.
| 46 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
