Article

2008-12-31 Africa Horn

Heroic Brit trio take on Somali pirates before escaping into sea

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Posted by tu3031 2008-12-31 12:15|| || Front Page|| [6 views ] Top

#1 Maritime law banned any weapons being taken on board,

IDIOTS

Posted by Rednek Jim 2008-12-31 12:28|| 2008-12-31 12:28|| Front Page Top

#2 Can someone point me to the maritime law that prevents gear for ship's security?

Posted by Penguin 2008-12-31 12:35|| 2008-12-31 12:35|| Front Page Top

#3 fuck maritime law

Posted by Menhadden Ulomock4010 2008-12-31 12:42|| 2008-12-31 12:42|| Front Page Top

#4 What Menhadden said.

Posted by Scooter McGruder 2008-12-31 13:26|| 2008-12-31 13:26|| Front Page Top

#5 What everyone said.

Posted by DarthVader 2008-12-31 13:29|| 2008-12-31 13:29|| Front Page Top

#6 Now, now folks. A polite way to say it would be, "perhaps maritime law should be changed".

Posted by tu3031 2008-12-31 13:34|| 2008-12-31 13:34|| Front Page Top

#7 Barry Hart Dubner, a law professor at Barry University in Florida who has written extensively on piracy, said that on the high seas, anyone can step up to battle the pirates. "It gets trickier when you try to get them in territorial waters (within 7.5 miles of the coastline), because theoretically you need permission of the coastal state. But they can use any force they want because they're considered enemies of mankind," Dubner said.

Bringing weapons on board ships is "strongly discouraged" by the United Nations' International Maritime Organization, and experts agree that arming commercial crews is a bad idea.

"If you hire a company to do it or even arm your crew personnel, I think it would put them more at risk than if they weren't. If they start shooting now you have an international incident," said Michael Lee, assistant vice president at Miami-based "non-lethal" security company McRoberts Maritime Security.

Having weapons on board isn't just a health and liability hazard, it also increases insurance costs "exponentially," Lee said. Armed guards cost between $1,000 and $1,500 a day.

"The problem is that most ship owners will not allow crews to carry weapons on board the ship. Most of these crews come from the Philippines and other areas and they're worried they'll kill each other. They're more worried about that than they are about piracy," Dubner said.

Posted by tu3031 2008-12-31 13:46|| 2008-12-31 13:46|| Front Page Top

#8 Say the word pirate and you and I see a violent, peg-legged sea dog with gunpowder smouldering in his beard.

Shipowners see businessmen, and rightly so: only three hostages have been killed so far in the recent attacks (all the deaths were accidents), while the pirates have made tens of millions of pounds in profit.

The last thing that shipowners want to do is to change a monetary relationship into a gunfight. Why? Its bad for business, driving the all-important insurance rates through the roof.

Individual ships can deploy preventive measures such as proper lighting, round-the-clock watchmen with radar and thermal video equipment, fire hoses, physical barriers, acoustic weapons, radar, video cameras, electric fencing and high-intensity light beams.

Armed guards, however, are a last resort. They are expensive, some flag states dont allow them, and many ports wont admit ships with weapons on board, forcing the guns to be dumped overboard on arrival.

And the consequences of unleashing a cut-price, untrained army on to the decks of the worlds merchant navy sends shivers down the keel of the maritime world.

Posted by tu3031 2008-12-31 13:49|| 2008-12-31 13:49|| Front Page Top

#9 a helicopter from the French warship appeared. Although it was armed, it is against maritime laws in the area to board a vessel by force after it has been taken by pirates.

Those who do not protect their freedoms will soon find they have none.

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2008-12-31 14:11|| 2008-12-31 14:11|| Front Page Top

#10 in times like these any sane man would asked the rhetorical question - what would Chuck Martel do?

Posted by Andy Ulusoque aka Broadhead6 2008-12-31 14:30|| 2008-12-31 14:30|| Front Page Top

#11 Let's put our thinking caps on.... how did these Maritime rules of behavior evolve? Perhaps they were hatched in full form from the UN in 1949? Maybe not... let's all think real, real damn hard on this.... Law of the Sea? Hum......... NO.

Posted by .5MT 2008-12-31 18:13|| www.cybernations.net]">[www.cybernations.net] 2008-12-31 18:13|| Front Page Top

#12 It seems to me that the Brits were nuts to take on the assignment with the equipment and ROE's they had, as well as the recognition that Somali thugs would look askance at their nationality. *Nobody* needs the money this badly. And the ship's owners are silly to bother with the expense of hiring elite ex-military people as guards when they're not giving them the equipment with which to fight pirates off. My guess is that insurance companies won't relent on the rule about armed guards until they go bust paying compensation, or discover that more and more ships are choosing to self-insure rather than pay their exorbitant premiums.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2008-12-31 23:33|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2008-12-31 23:33|| Front Page Top

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