Pirate Mercs

Just been chatting with some offshore crew that have been working in Nigeria
Nigeria where no news gets out but all of them have stories about crew being murdered.
Not one week goes by without someone asking you if you have a spare body bag for some other vessel.
Many vessels used to motor out to sea half the night and then back in the morning to start work at daylight.
Wages only 20-30% higher.
BUT
Refusing to participate in corruption will get you killed
Participating in the corruption and then someone tells someone else you have cash on board gets you killed.
One guy told me an accomodation barge called up to ask for some clothes as a team of thugs robbed all the crew and took all the clothes and 150 crews belongings
Another story, vessel pirated while guards staying on their cabins???

 

Almost all the factory farmed animals at some establishments are fed there own dead, ground, dried and the slurry added into there feed. It's completely illegal as far as I know, but companies get fined for it often enough that its obviously a common practice.

nice eh
I'll take a range animal any day but this factory farmed stuff you can keep
nnnnooooo thanks

B

 

im not really sure about the weather conditions down there, but i know that the swedish navy made some rather heavily V-shaped torpedo boats that could cruise through pretty heavy seas, all you needed to do was to have courage enough to set at least 30 knots and put your raingear on.

 

I mentioned that already,

there is no weather in that region. Around Sokotra you find adverse conditions sometimes. Between Salalah and Djibouti it is mainly calm, sometimes very hazy, and always uncomfortable hot. But weather is rarely found there.
And these torpedo boats are NOT V shaped in a way we understand deep V! They are just overforced displacement vessels, not planing! Yes they can operate in nasty conditions of course. They are designed to survive the North Sea in Winter!

Lookup the youtube clip about "Aries Lord" in really bad weather, and you know what North Sea in Winter means. And that was just a average storm there, nothing uncommon.

Regards
Richard

 

the engines in these things are also used in freight trains
definitely have the power to force a hull form beyond its hull speed
shape in the face of 7400 hp is almost irrelevant

 

here's your escorting service area
http://www.icc-ccs.org/index.php?op...controller=visualization.googlemap&Itemid=261

 

Meat keeps longer
but Dijbouti has great fresh vegies even though it looks like it has never rained there. ( all comes from Ethiopia)
so you'll be able to have vegans on board as well

 

Funny how the piracy is almost non-existent in the higher latitudes, except in the banking houses.
Do sharks think pirate leg tastes like chicken?

 

the piracy map is dam interesting
you can zoom into see precisely were each event takes place
thing is almost like google earth that way
you can also go back through a few different years and see what happened where

 

Unfortunately you cannot zoom in the future too..................

One interesting aspect you can extract from that map. The danger zone is (as I mentioned) between Salalah and Djibouti. And it is closer to the "safe" coast as to the Somali coast!

Another interesting point, the main targets are General Cargo ships / Bulkers as I mentioned too! They are usually in the 35000 to 40000 tonnes ballpark (Handysize). These vessels rarely do better than 20kn! A interesting clientele. Because from 24 to 20 knots is half the consumption for our example boat!

Regards
Richard

 

I dont understand the full plan here. You are going to escort them up to 1000 miles and fend off piracy? What if they attack with more than one,--like Hyenas.

Would it not be better to put your crew on the ship itself.

What they normally do is shimmy up the back on a grappling hook. They wont do that with a crew of military personnel at the top.

Then you've got food and pleasant accommodation. All you need to do is get them out and back again.

This would mean you could do more than one ship according to how many men you had. A helicopter would do the job

Is the priority to get the ship through safely or to eradicate piracy as well.

 

For some reason, the shippers seem reluctant to put armed personel aboard. The States has some military vessels there. France and the EU have military vessels stationed there with the intent that vessels wait for a convoy and four or five to go through at once between stations. And this helps but the objective is to make the world a better, safer place... while making money, of course!
Let's say that there are armed personel aboard ship. You call the pirates as they approach; "Unafanyaje (what are your intentions)", "La sogelea (do not approach)". If they continue; "Mungoatakupa tuzo Lako (God is about to give you your reward)" "Asante sauna, Mwaka mpya mueno! (Thank-you very much, Happy new Year!)", But what if they answer by brandishing an RPG - you kill them? I think better to just have a presence and let them go home to their mothers. They will find another way to get by. If they are aggressive towards an obviously armed escort, they need to learn that they will get their reward.
It is very easy for the pirates to lay low and "be fishermen" waiting for the right moment to pounce.

 

Yes piracy could be fought on land with better results stopping them pirate in the first place. I assume un emplyoment is just one such reason.

I think they have been trying this but have unfortunately stopped legal and bonafide fishing vessels going to sea.

Some kind of licensing perhaps where a boat has a big number on the side identifying the owner and crew,--no number and its immediate arrest for piracy, no matter what or where you are.

Then this is meddling with another countries politics,--a corrupt country too.

 

What is the "licensing" suppose to do? From what I have read the pirates ARE fishermen, this is how they get the boats in the first place. It will change nothing except give a false sense of security.

 

If a boat is seen pirating with a big number on the side then you can find out who owns it.

Spot checks in the harbour, fishing does not require grappling hooks and a dozen automatics.

Maybe a whole series of regulations that would deter, the death penalty for one. If there own government wanted to stop it they could.

Sorry if My ideas are stupid . I would be only too willing to listen to any ideas you may have.