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| Arabia |
| Navy frigate saves tanker from pirates |
| 2011-01-05 |
| AN Australian navy frigate has thwarted a pirate attack on a UK-flagged chemical tanker in the Arabian Sea. The guided-missile frigate HMAS Melbourne steamed to the aid of the tanker CPO China after it was boarded by pirates on Monday night Australian time, the Defence Department said. HMAS Melbourne was more than 260km away when alerted to the incident but covered the distance in a little over six hours. While en route its helicopter raced ahead to the CPO China and "was able to deter the pirates from attempting to take control of the ship". "As a result the pirates aborted the attack and left the vessel when Melbourne arrived on the scene," Defence said today. Earlier, the tanker's crew had locked themselves into a stronghold from where they could maintain control of the ship. The crew also remained in satellite communications with the outside world after the pirates boarded. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #4 waste of money chasing them around on the high seas. Solution is simple and cheap: give Dr Farole in Puntland the funds to jug them. He's got hundreds sitting in the Puntland prisons already. But the UN won't recognise Puntland as a separate state and doesn't like anybody aiding them directly in case that enables the splitting of Somalia (Somaliland also wants to split) Hence we have the farce of the world's navies steaming up and down the GOA as glorified, super-expensive highway cops. And super expensive shipping insurance Dr Farole's entire state budget in 2008? $15 million. Doesn't go far in Africa... smaller than some of the ransoms paid. |
| Posted by: anon1 2011-01-05 19:15 |
| #3 I would have hoped it was the USS "Kill the Pirates", myself. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2011-01-05 19:08 |
| #2 Cheaderhead, neither of those two ships could do 20+ knots for six hours. |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2011-01-05 18:12 |
| #1 Damn, I was hoping it was HMS Surprise or USS Constitution |
| Posted by: Cheaderhead 2011-01-05 16:14 |