Piracy affecting Grindrod

JSE-listed shipping and logistics business Grindrod says piracy has affected the group’s earnings in the year to December. CE Alan Olivier says piracy off the Horn of Africa has had a negative impact on the South African firm's bottom line.

Business Report newspaper says today the miscreants have affected particularly in the group’s Capesize bulk carrier business that mostly carries contractual cargo from Brazil into the Persian Gulf region. Olivier said Grindrod had to divert its ships around the high-risk zone in the Indian Ocean as far as possible, which obviously added significant cost. “Effectively we are losing a voyage a year so when we would be doing six voyages a year (a ship) we are now doing five voyages a year and receiving the same revenue,” he told he business daily.

“But it does have a positive impact in that if you can only do five voyages a year you need one sixth more ships in the market, which absorbs more ships into the market.” The absorption of ships will reduce the oversupply and improve the potential to increase shipping rates. Olivier added that piracy was also having a negative impact on the chemical side of the group’s business because there was a significant chemical trade into the east Africa coast and the Persian Gulf region. 

He said there were increased insurance costs, higher fuel costs for deviations and the cost of exercising best management practice, which involved improving security by putting razor wire around ships and installing water cannon, Business Report continued. All of this added cost to the operation of ships, he said. While Grindrod did not have a significant number of ships trading specifically into that area, Olivier said pirates had been operating in Mozambican waters and 1500 nautical miles off the Somali coast “so they are right across the ocean”. 

Olivier said the group had not had any recent piracy incidents, but some of its partners had and one of Grindrod’s Capesize carriers was followed for about 40 minutes about 18 months ago before the pirates gave up. Grindrod yesterday reported that attributable income declined by 11% to R780.3 million in the year to December from R872.8 million in the previous year. The non-shipping business contributed 54% of Grindrod’s attributable income, which is the first time in the company’s 101-year history that shipping did not contribute the majority of the group’s earnings. 

Headline earnings a share declined by 12 percent to R1.676 from R1.896. 

Olivier attributed the decline in earnings and headline earnings a share primarily to a R166m impact from the stronger exchange rate of the rand against the US dollar, lower profits on the sale of ships of R21 million compared with R253 million in the previous year, and business development costs. 

But he said volume growth in ship operating activities, together with improved profitability from freight services and financial services, contributed positively to results. Revenue rose by 9% to R30.2 billion from R27.7 billion, while operating profit dropped by 16 percent to R963.7 million from R1.14 billion. A dividend of 54c was declared, 10 percent lower than last year’s 60c. 

WSJ: Pirate attacks leave round-the-world sailors with tough choices…

Days before the Quest set off on its doomed trek across the Indian Ocean, Bill Rouse, a Texan attempting to sail around the world, made Quest owner Scott Adam an offer.

Pirate attacks had become so intense, that he and a group of yacht owners decided to transport their vessels across the Indian Ocean by cargo ship. Rouse and the others would fly to Turkey to reclaim their yachts. The cost was steep, $35,000 a piece. There was space for the Quest.

Adam declined. The Quest was planning to sail as part of a convoy for safety. Plus, circumnavigating the globe under his own steam “was a life-long quest,” Rouse said Adam told him.

“He smiled,” Rouse recalled, “because of the obvious pun.”

Less than two weeks later, Adam, his wife, Jean and their two crew members Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle, were dead at the hands of Somali pirates.

Pictured: S/Y Calypso, a 40-foot Bob Perry designed sloop owned by John and Margo Almeida circumnavigated via the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Aden between 1998 and 2008.

The dangers of piracy are well known to most experienced sailors, who monitor reports of attacks closely and often travel in groups through high-risk areas. But the killings have stunned the tiny, tight-knit international community of “blue water” sailors–adventurers and serious mariners who sail the globe for years at a time.

Now, many are changing course to avoid the Indian Ocean, others are scrambling to arrange transportation for their yachts on cargo ships. Some are demanding government action against the pirates, or escorts across dangerous waters.

“We cannot allow a bunch of thugs to take an entire ocean away from the world. Ignoring this will be disrespecting the deaths of the crew of Quest,” said Rouse, the Texan, from his yacht, Bebe, anchored off of Cochin, India.

(This story and related background material will be available on The Wall Street Journal website, WSJ.com.)

As piracy attacks have become more frequent, the U.S. and Europe have increased navy patrols.

But Somali pirates take orders from wealthy and powerful crime bosses who have thrived in the chaotic country. The Somali government is weak.

“The real problem here is that no one is tackling the problem at its root–on land,” said Pierre Prosper, a former Bush administration ambassador who has been advising the Somali transitional government on piracy and other security issues.

Some larger commercial ships and megayachts have taken to hiring armed escorts. That leaves individuals who can’t afford those precautions more vulnerable.

“We want government armed escort of private-vessel convoys through the danger area, as those of us now stranded in this part of the world (estimated at a few hundred boats) can’t afford the private armed guards that some commercial vessels are using, nor can we all afford to transport our boats on cargo ships,” Nancy and Burger Zapf wrote in an email from Phuket, where their vessel, Halekai is anchored.

Zapf said that she and her husband planned to sail across the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea to the Mediterranean as part of their plan to circumnavigate the world.

Changing course is difficult for some, who have spent years saving and planning to sail around the world. Many are now urging their fellow cruisers to take a different route, south around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, notorious for turbulent seas and storms.

“We’re changing what our fears are. South Africa is not so scary, what’s scary are the pirates,” said Mark Jensen, an Australian who ran into Somali pirates trying to board a commercial ship last year during his trip around the world. Jensen said he “would never go back to that part of the world.”

Sevenstar Yacht Transport, an Amsterdam-based shipping company, is diverting resources to pick up last-minute requests from terrified yacht-owners. In the past few years, the company has shipped about 20 yachts a year. But in the first two months of this year, the company has already shipped 10 yachts, and plans to ship 15 more in the next few weeks.

On Wednesday, a day after news of the American deaths, the organizer of a convoy of 30 yachts in Thailand contacted Sevenstar to arrange transport across the Indian Ocean.

“People are so afraid,” said Richard Klabber, managing director of Sevenstar.

Leisure sailors point out that not everyone can afford that option. Many yacht owners, called “cruisers” or “yachties,” are retirees who have sold their belongings to fund their travel and live on a budget.

Klabber said his company is reducing its rates to accommodate the desperate. But the solution, he says, is simple: “They shouldn’t be there. They should just not be in that zone.”

Somali rebels agree ransom deal with pirate leaders

Somali militants freed pirate gang leaders detained last week after agreeing on a cut for future ransoms as well as a deal to have hijacked ships anchor at the port town of Haradhere, says pirates sources.

The Al Shabaab rebels, who profess loyalty to al Qaeda, said they had settled a multi-million dollar deal to receive a 20 percent cut in all future ransoms paid to the pirates, and opened a marine office at Haradhere to liaise with the pirates.

The rebel group controls major sea ports in southern Somalia, including the port of Kismayo, and seized Haradhere after merging with rival insurgents Hizbul Islam late last year, Reuters reports.

"After negotiation we signed the 20 percent ransom share to Al Shabaab and they released our leaders today. Now our relationship with Al Shabaab has improved," a pirate who identified himself as Ali told Reuters by phone from Haradhere.

"They have opened the marine office to improve security and coordination between us. We are happy because we have no other alternatives than agreeing with Al Shabaab demands for us to maintain Haradhere as our base."

Pirate gangs are making tens of millions of dollars in ransoms, and despite successful efforts to quell attacks in the Gulf of Aden, international navies have struggled to contain piracy in the Indian Ocean owing to the vast distances involved.

Ahmed Wardhere, who attended the negotiations as a representative of the local community, confirmed the agreement.

"Pirates who previously belonged to Al Shabaab signed the agreement first and then the other pirates agreed. Only a small group of pirate gangs who refused the agreement moved away with their ship towards the deep shores of Hobyo, he added.

A yacht with four Americans on board is believed to have been hijacked in the Arabian Sea, the U.S. embassy in Nairobi said on Saturday. 

Western officials have long worried that some of the money from piracy is making its way into the hands of extremists to fund violence in Somalia. 

Shipping industry associations have warned that over 40 percent of the world's seaborne oil supply passing through the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea is at risk from Somali pirates, who are able to operate ever further out to sea and for longer periods, using hijacked vessels as mother ships. 

Russian tanker repelled pirate attack in Indian Ocean

Crew of Russian tanker NS Century belonging to JSC Novoship (member of company groupingSovkomflot) repelled attack of armed people in the Indian Ocean, reported RIA Novosti referring to the shipowner's press service. 

The incident happened on Feb 16 forty nautical miles off India. The tanker's crew noticed three boats heading towards the ship, and then the all-ship alarm was given. 

"When armed guards who were on board made a series of cautionary shots, the boats turned back and sailed away. Although it was not confirmed there were pirates in boats, the company's directors thanked the shipmaster and crew of NS Century for vigilance and expertise", reported the press service. 

Company grouping Sovkomflot is the world's fifth largest tanker company in terms of the fleet available. Russian government holds 100% shares of the company which comprises 132 vessels (126 of them are property of the steamship company). Overall deadweight is over 9.4 mln tons; active shipbuilding program implies 28 vessels with overall deadweight of 2.8 mln tons.

Somali piracy becoming "criminal enterprise"

Somali piracy has evolved into a transnational, organised criminal network that risks becoming ingrained in the country's economic and social structures, says the head of the US counter-piracy unit.

Attacks on vessels off the coast of Somalia have been growing rapidly since 2007 as young Somalis in small skiffs with their AK-47s and rocket propelled grenades take to the waters to seek their fortunes.

Donna L. Hopkins, coordinator of Counter Piracy and Maritime Security for the US government, said it had become apparent that other nationalities were hoping to reap the benefits of what has become an increasingly lucrative activity, Reuters reports.

"Somali piracy has grown from being essentially a garden variety, local, off the coast protest against illegal fishing ... into a seriously networked and capable, transnational, organised and criminal enterprise," she said.

"We think there are other fishermen, fishermen other than Somali nationality, who are colluding in this business and helping to share the spoils."

Ransom payments have shot up over the last five years and now average around US$4.5 million to $5 million per ship, from around US$150,000 to US$300,000 previously, according to Dieter Berg, head of the marine division at reinsurer Munich Re.

By using bigger "mother ships" equipped with more sophisticated equipment, pirates have been able to carry out increasing numbers of attacks in recent months and range further away from the Somali coastline.

Last week Somali pirates seized two oil tankers in two days, capturing a Greek ship carrying Kuwaiti oil to the United States after taking an Italian oil vessel.

Hopkins said it was likely that sophisticated groups, potentially operating out of financial centres, had established networks to distribute fuel and weapons and transmit ransoms through money laundering networks.

"We need to find out who is complicit in the financial networks, other logistical supporting networks that are enabling pirates," she told reporters at the U.S. Embassy in London.

Regional instability along a critical trade route combined to make Somalia a "perfect storm" to fuel piracy, Hopkins said and warned it risked becoming an insurmountable problem.

"It's pretty clear from the reporting that's coming out that piracy is becoming deeply ingrained in the Somali economic and social structure," she said. "As long as there is no effective government to control the Somali territorial water and coastline this is going to be a problem."

Hopkins dismissed "deliberate links" between piracy and terrorism, but said militants would be attracted by the financial gains.

"Terrorists, no matter how ideologically pure, need money. And I suspect they are not above taking what they can." 

International Maritime Organisation warns of not taking piracy threat seriously

The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) warns that an “unacceptably high proportion of ships transiting the Gulf of Aden and western Indian Ocean” are not taking the threat of piracy seriously by heeding warnings or taking measures to protect their ships. 

In a circular letter to IMO members, the United Nations, intergovernmental, non-governmental and other organizations, the IMO said that naval forces off the coast of Somalia have observed many ships in area that are not registered with the Maritime Security Centre Horn of Africa; are not reporting to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) Dubai; show no piracy deterrents and are not acting on warnings of pirate activity. At least 25% of commercial ships passing through the Gulf of Aden ignore safety precautions, AllBusiness reported in January. 

The IMO noted that as of February 14, 685 crew on board 30 ships are being held for ransom along the Somali coast, which reflects a worsening situation as pirates are expanding their reach into the Indian Ocean, especially through the increasing use of mother ships. The organisation also says that pirate attacks are becoming more violent and that pirates are using captured crew as human shields.

Failure to implement fully the IMO guidance, including the industry-developed best management practices, significantly increases the risk of successful pirate attacks, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) said. Some of the best management guidelines include maintaining a high cruising speed (travelling at 18 knots or more makes it almost impossible for pirates to board), erecting physical barriers and using hoses and foam to deter pirates.

“Regrettably, there is disturbing evidence to show that, in too many cases, this advice has either not reached shipping companies or their ships or has not been acted upon,” the circular letter says. The IMO goes on to urge “all those concerned, particularly Administrations, industry representative bodies, seafarer associations, shipowners and companies to take action to ensure that ships’ masters receive updated information unfailingly and that all the recommended preventive, evasive and defensive measures are fully and effectively implemented”.

The announcement follows the launch on February 3 of the IMO’s anti-piracy action plan, in support of the 2011 World Maritime Day theme: “Piracy: orchestrating the response”. The action plan was launched by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who said the escalation of piracy off the Somali coast is “completely unacceptable” and requires urgent action. He welcomed the decision of the IMO to pay special attention to this serious threat during the year ahead.

Also present at the launch was Colonel Richard Spencer, who criticised the shipping industry for in many cases failing to take adequate self-protection measures or assist the co-ordinating naval bodies, even when they had advised authorities they were in the high risk zone. “NATO has taken to phoning up ships within 50 miles of a mothership sighting to warn them of the risk because ships are not reading the warnings they put out. They are sailing blind,” he said. “There is a reason why some flags consistently have the highest number of ships taken. I’m speechless as to why some flag states are not doing more.” He said naval forces had “observed non-compliance” on the ships of the top four flag states, Liberia, Panama, Marshall Islands and Bahamas.

As a result of the continuing piracy scourge, the IMO is encourages governments to provide extra naval and aerial surveillance in piracy affected areas and provide security forces with information on ship movements.

The IMO added that an information distribution facility (IDF) has been created to help security forces operating in the Gulf of Aden and the Western Indian Ocean to build a better picture of where ships are, in order to provide warnings of pirate activity and to facilitate more effective repression of piracy and armed robbery against ships through the more effective deployment of the limited available naval and military resources.

Through the anti-piracy action plan, the IMO aims to strengthen its anti-piracy abilities and expand its reach to create a broader, global effort. The plan has six main goals for 2011 and beyond. These are:

• to increase political pressure to secure the release of hostages;

• to review and improve IMO guidelines and promote compliance with best management practices and the recommended preventive, evasive and defensive measures ships should follow;

• to improve support from and co-ordination with navies;

• to promote anti-piracy co-operation between states and the industry;

• to deter, interdict and bring to justice pirates;

• and to provide care, during the post-traumatic period, for those attacked or hijacked by pirates.

Feature: pirates are ‘masters of the ocean’ – and what to do about it

As the world faces the prospect of the worst ever year for piracy, the United Nations has admitted that pirates are becoming masters of the ocean and that 90% of suspected pirates that are captured are released again.

Jack Lang, the United Nations Special Advisor on Somali Piracy and former French Culture minister said that “there is this race between the pirates and the international community, and progressively that race is being won by the pirates.”

“Piracy still increases,” Lang told the UN Security Council last month. “Nine out of ten pirates captured by naval forces are freed, despite efforts by many states to have a single jurisdiction,” Lang says, and adds that, "this impunity encourages piracy". Indeed, naval forces have released between 500 and 700 pirates over the last three years – some pirates have even been arrested several times, the Economist reports. 

In January this year there were 35 attacks on ships, with seven of them being successful, giving the pirates a further 148 hostages, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB). The situation will worsen in March when the monsoon abates and the Arabian Sea grows calmer - experts predict 2011 will be the worst year of Somali piracy. The IMB also reports that 1 016 sailors were taken hostage off Somalia last year and 49 ships hijacked, while 28 ships with 638 crewmembers are currently being held. 

According to Lang, “Piracy has created an economy with a level of sophistication. At first it was artisan, now it has taken on an industrial scope.” The rapid sophistication of its methods, organizational structures and resources have allowed pirates to demand high ransoms and launder money similar to the operation of a mafia. Ransom costs have increased markedly of late, amounting to US$238 million last year, or an average of US$5.4 million per ship, compared with US$150 000 in 2005 and $3.5 million at the end of 2009. The South Korean oil tanker Samho Dream set a new record when it was released for US$9.5 million in November last year.

“There are 1 500 [pirates] who are defying the world, defying the UN. We must act now, quickly and firmly,” Lang said. “So do we do nothing, or do we try to find more effective solutions?”

In a report delivered to the UN last month, Lang calls for a multi-dimensional approach to the issue: economic, security, and judicial or penitentiary. He stressed the need for effective specialised courts to prosecute captured pirates and equally the facilities to imprison them. He recommended the international community work towards “Somaliasation” of responses to piracy by setting up courts and prisons in Somaliland and Puntland in Somalia as well as in the Tanzanian town of Arusha. The Somali courts would operate under Somali jurisdiction and laws.

Lang called for a modest US$25 million special funding, in order to better coordinate and empower the fight against piracy. In comparison, the report estimates piracy costs the world economy $7 billion. The US$25 million would be used over three years.

In April last year, the UN Security Council called on all states to criminalise piracy under their domestic laws and urged Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to consider setting up a regional or international maritime piracy tribunal.

Some 700 suspected and convicted pirates are now in detention in 12 countries, more than half of them in Somalia, according to Yury Fedotov, executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. 

At the moment very few countries are prepared to hold and prosecute pirates, while lawlessness in Somalia makes trials there practically impossible. Somalia has not had a central functioning government since the civil war that erupted following the overthrow of former president Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. “The problem in Somalia is there is no state; this has been the case for twenty years,” Lang stressed, adding that political instability and poverty are rife, although the region of Somaliland is relatively stable and prosperous. 

Somalia’s neighbour Kenya has become the lead prosecutor of suspected pirates, after persuasion from the West. In 2009 The European Union, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, China and Denmark signed anti-piracy agreements with Kenya, the BBC reports. Eighteen Somalis are currently serving long prison sentences in Kenya, according to the Economist, and 130 suspected pirates captured since 2008 are currently being held by the country. 

In exchange for its help, the European Union invested roughly US$3 million in the country’s judicial system through the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, some of which went on building a special court for piracy trials. However, with its legal system already overloaded, the government is reluctant to take any more. In November last year a Kenyan High Court judge ruled in a case that the country had no jurisdiction over piracy committed in international waters, the BBC reports.

Meanwhile, the Seychelles has said it will host a second UN-supported centre to prosecute suspected pirates seized by foreign navies. It has amended its criminal code to enable it to prosecute them under universal jurisdiction, according to the BBC.

Despite the agreements with Kenya, suspected pirates have been taken to the Untied States, France, Yemen, Germany and the Netherlands, among others, for prosecution. In the first case to come to trial in Europe, a Dutch court sentenced five Somali men to five years in prison for attacking a Dutch Antilles-flagged cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden in 2009.

The International Maritime Bureau has said that the logistical and legal burdens involved in transporting pirate suspects to Western countries could be expensive and time-consuming. Another issue is if the pirates are set free, the prosecuting country has to deal with them and possibly grant them asylum - pirates captured by South Korea said they were liking their time in prison and had even asked to stay in the country, Reuters reports. The pirates were captured by South Korean commandos during a raid to free a hijacked chemical tanker on January 21. South Korean maritime police have formed a team of 50 officials to deal with the country’s first legal attempt to punish foreign pirates in a move that will be closely watched by other countries dealing with piracy.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) allows sovereign nations to seize and prosecute pirates but nations are often frustrated by cost, rules of engagement and politics. Whether a country wants to prosecute arrested pirates depends on its own law.

In their article, Fighting Piracy (which appeared in the February 2009 Armed Forces Journal), Commander James Kraska and Captain Brian Wilson state: "On the high seas or in any other place outside the jurisdiction of a state…pirated ships may be boarded, the pirates can be detained and the property on board the vessel can be seized and submitted to admiralty and criminal courts. The registry or 'flag' of the attacked vessel, the state of nationality of any of the victims or crew, the nationality of the on-scene warship, and, in some cases, coastal and port states, all have a valid basis for asserting jurisdiction. But it can take weeks or months to sort out these logistics and legal issues."

“If we do not act quickly, we will reach a point of no return,” Lang warned. “We can not spare our spending here.” Piracy costs between US$5 and US$9 billion a year, with a knock-on effect of increasing prices and reducing activity in the fishing and tourist industry, Lang said.

The UN and other organisations agree that solving piracy involves solving the issue on land, and not at sea, by creating economic prosperity, a functioning legal system and a stable government. 

So far no nation, not even the United States, has seriously contemplated fighting piracy on land by destroying pirate bases, according to the Economist. Instead, the international community runs several seaborne anti-piracy missions off North Africa, with the European Naval Forces Operation Atalanta, NATO-led Operation Ocean Shield and Combined Taskforce 151 led by Americans. Atalanta was originally set up to safeguard the United Nation’s World Food Programme aid deliveries to Somalia but has expanded to take on a general anti-piracy role. Other nations like South Korea, China, Japan, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia and India also have ships off the East African coast.

Although waters in the Gulf of Aden are now safer, the international efforts have pushed pirates move farther offshore, even going as far as India and Mozambique. Colonel Richard Spencer, the British chief of the EU’s naval force, told the Economist that policing this enlarged area would require five times as many warships as the international task forces can muster. According to Lang, “There are numerous gaps in the counterpiracy effort.”

While piracy off the Somali coast is most often in the spotlight, it is also a big problem in the Malacca Strait and the Caribbean, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).

Pirates used to be most active in the Malacca Strait but piracy has been alleviated there through a successful campaign of patrolling, arresting, prosecuting and imprisoning pirates. Conditions onshore improved with a peace settlement among rebels in Aceh, which led to economic development and improved living conditions, Gulf News reports.

As the prospect of improving conditions in Somalia remains elusive, ship owners are exploring a variety of options to defend against piracy. BAE Systems, for example, recently demonstrated a prototype laser beam capable of “providing a visual warning to pirates at distances greater than 2 kilometres, and of disorientating attackers sufficiently at lesser distances so that weapons cannot be targeted effectively” at commercial vessels.

Italio-British company Selex Galileo has developed a detector, able to provide 2D and 3D imaging capability from a single laser illumination pulse (BiL) to give sailors enhanced recognition and identification capability, day and night.

In January Samsung Heavy Industries rolled out a system that alerts the crew to an approaching vessel and enables sailors to remotely fire water cannons at the attackers. Mace Personal Defence recently announced it had joined with Shipboard Defence Systems to create an anti-piracy device that would spray Mace pepper spray at boarders. Other anti-piracy systems work by using strobing lights to disorient attackers or firing a rope across the water to entangle propellers. 

Another device is the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), which works at distances up to 300 metres by disorienting attackers with high energy sound. It was used in November 2005 when pirates attacked the Seabourn Spirit, and in November 2008 when the MV Biscaglia was attacked. The pirates failed to board the Seabourn Spirit but captured the Biscaglia.

Another solution is to have a protected ‘citadel’ or safe room from which crewmembers can safely steer the ship even with pirates aboard, until being rescued by naval forces. However, pirates are using explosives and cutting torches to breach some of these ‘citadels’.

Increasingly, ships are carrying private armed security guards - the German Ernst Komrowski shipping company said it will now have its 20 ships protected by armed guards and the Hamburg-based Offen shipping company says it will also put armed guards on ships passing through the pirate zone, Der Spiegel reports.

The problem with employing armed guards provokes a more brutal response from pirates while applying the historic cure for piracy – exemplary violence – would lead to many more dead hostages, the Economist reports. However, experts like US author Ralph Peters suggest that only when groups like pirates become exceedingly violent will the international community make a concerted effort to stamp out the problem. 

Meanwhile, ships sailing in risky waters have been given guidelines to maintain a high cruising speed (travelling at 18 knots or more makes it almost impossible for pirates to board), erect physical barriers and use hoses and foam to deter pirates.

Historically, piracy has been stopped by hunting down and destroying pirate ships and bases. Many pirates, such as William ‘Captain’ Kidd (1645-1701) and ‘Calico Jack’ (Jack Rackham – 1682-1720), were hanged in the 17th and 18th centuries. Indeed, there was a time when "to see to it that any man who sails under a pirate flag or wears a pirate brand gets what he deserves: a short drop and sudden stop" - a hanging - was not just Hollywood dialogue (in this case Lieutenant James Norrington in Pirates of the Caribbean). Captured pirates in previous eras were notoriously "hanged from the nearest yardarm." Indeed, the last pirate to be hanged was Nat Gordon in New York in 1862. 

Most studies of crime have concluded it is the certainty of capture and punishment (and not capture and punishment itself) that influences criminal behaviour. When nine out of ten pirates are released unpunished, it is hardly surprising that the IMB is predicting 2011 to be the worst year on record for incidents of piracy.

IMO spells out action needed to tackle piracy

Failure to implement fully the IMO guidance, including the industry-developed best management practices, significantly increases the risk of successful pirate attacks, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) said in a robust message to its Member States, following the launch on 3 February 2011 of IMO’s anti-piracy action plan, in support of the 2011 World Maritime Day theme: “Piracy: orchestrating the response”.

In a circular letter (No.3164, 14 February 2011), all IMO Members, the United Nations and specialized agencies, intergovernmental organizations and non-governmental organizations in consultative status are informed that naval forces operating in the region off the coast of Somalia have reported that an unacceptably high proportion of the ships transiting the Gulf of Aden and western Indian Ocean  are not registered with the Maritime Security Centre Horn of Africa; are not reporting to United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) Dubai; show no visible deterrent measures and are not acting upon the navigational warnings to shipping promulgating details of pirate attacks and suspect vessels.

In drawing attention to the increased risk of successful pirate attack due to failure to implement fully the best management practice guidance, IMO strongly urges “all those concerned, particularly Administrations, industry representative bodies, seafarer associations, shipowners and companies to take action to ensure that ships’ masters receive updated information unfailingly and that all the recommended preventive, evasive and defensive measures are fully and effectively implemented”. “Regrettably, there is disturbing evidence to show that, in too many cases, this advice has either not reached shipping companies or their ships or has not been acted upon,” the circular letter says.

The letter also encourages Member Governments (together with their endeavours at other fora and associations) to make greater efforts to provide the additional naval and aerial surveillance and other resources needed through every means possible.

The letter also invites Administrations to provide long range identification and tracking of ships (LRIT) information to security forces operating in the Gulf of Aden and the western Indian Ocean.  An information distribution facility (IDF) has been established to assist security forces operating in the Gulf of Aden and the Western Indian Ocean to build a more accurate picture of where the merchant ships are, in order to provide more timely warnings of pirate activity and to facilitate more effective repression of piracy and armed robbery against ships through the more effective deployment of the limited available naval and military resources.

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Momsen and Bunker Hill Disrupt Pirate Attack

ARABIAN SEA (NNS) -- USS Momsen (DDG 92) and USS Bunker Hill (CG 52) disrupted a pirate attack on Panamanian flagged merchant vessel Duqm, Feb. 2 in the Gulf of Oman.

While transiting in international waters, the merchant vessel reported that pirates were attempting to board the vessel. Momsen and Bunker Hill, which were in the vicinity, immediately responded to the Duqm's distress signal and caused two pirates skiffs alongside the vessel with ladders against its hull to flee the area.

Momsen and Bunker Hill tracked the skiffs movement and located the mothership that facilitated the attempted boarding of Duqm, towing the two empty skiffs. Consistent with the U.N. Security Council Resolutions on piracy and U.S. rules of engagement, Momsen destroyed the two skiffs to prevent their use for future attacks.

Momsen and Bunker Hill are deployed supporting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 5th fleet area of operations.