Modern Day PiratesCaptain Kidd, Blackbeard, Samuel Bellamy, these names used to make peoples' blood run cold. These were some of the most notorious pirates of old, but the era of the pirates is gone forever, or is it? Are there still pirates attacking ships, and killing people? The surprise answer to this question is that there is. There are no more famous names but the pirates are just as vicious as ever and maybe even more so. Don't expect to see to see a cutlass in one hand and a hook on the other. Today pirates are a little more modern. Instead of a sword they might stick an AK-47 assault rifle in your face. You could be facing a minor robbery, if there is such a thing, from a few desperate men or you could be facing the theft of your boat and the murder of its crew from more organized bands of pirates.
Some pirates will board your boat almost anywhere, even while it is in port. This type of pirate is more like a bugler. He hopes to sneak aboard, take anything that isn't nailed down and escape undetected. He may not seem dangerous but beware he will do anything to get away. A pirate of this type usually doesn't know anything about the cargo and is content just to rob some items and will leave you with the boat and cargo but you can't be certain of this. Its the other type of pirate that is most dangerous. The organized pirate crew may know exactly what your cargo is. They often have access to maritime records. They too attack from ships or boats and sometimes even fool you into thinking that they are harmless fisherman. You may get a distress signal from a boat and when you go to help, it could be the last thing you ever do.
There are companies that make items to repel boarders and they are making a nice profit. You wouldn't think that this would be needed in this day and age, but it is. Some of these pirate gangs can be quite large. A pirate gang of about 30 people attacked a freighter in 1995. The ship had a cargo worth about 5 million dollars and the cargo weighed in at 12,000 tons. The pirates were armed with machine guns. Not a crew to tinker with. They boarded the freighter off the coast of Thailand. All the pirates wore hoods to protect their identities. The crew of the freighter was taken prisoner and thrown into the bowels of the ship for two days. What were the pirates doing during this time? They were repainting the ship and changing the name of course. When they were done, they brought the crew on deck and stole anything they had of value and put them in rafts without water or food. The crew was lucky, VERY LUCKY, and were only in the rafts for a day when Vietnamese fishermen found and rescued them. Being in these rafts without food or water and with no navigation instruments could have been a death sentence. False papers were prepared for the cargo and for the ship. The pirates brazenly sailed right into the Chinese harbor at Beihai and sold the cargo to a Chinese company. Some time later they were spotted and fourteen of them captured along with the ship and a new cargo.
In the old days one of the favorite places to practice piracy was the Caribbean. Many people don't realize that there are still pirates practicing their trade there today. There are many petty pilferers that will steal anything off of one of those pleasure boats. This includes steering wheels, instruments, and almost anything else. Pity the poor person that came back to the dock at night only to find out his steering gear was gone.
It used to be that a large ship was considered safe from modern pirates, after all they had large crews didn't they? Well computers have changed all this. Many large ships have had their crew size drastically reduced making an act of piracy on these ship much easier. Most of the world's ships carry flags of convenience such as Panama, Honduras or Liberia and these countries are ill equipped to defend these ships and fight piracy. Further more these countries are really not interested, giving the growing pirate trade impetus to attack. The reduction in naval forces world wide doesn't help either. The Russian Navy has almost disappeared while the American and British navies have been reduced over 50% each. Piracy is increasing every year. In 2000 piracy and naval fraud accounted for 16 Billion Dollars.
There are certain areas that are more dangerous than the rest when it comes to piracy. The area around the Strait of Malacca is very dangerous. Over 50,000 ships have to pass through the Strait every year, since it is the main route between Asia and Europe. Another very dangerous area is off Bangladesh. It is so bad there that regulations call for only daytime trips through the area. The coast of Brazil is another dangerous area. There are so many dangerous areas it is hard to list them all. Some of the others are The Philippines, The West African Coast, The Arabian Peninsula and The Venezuelan and Columbian coasts, to mention a few. The pirates are starting to have a field day.
Pirate attacks are most likely to take place very late at night or early in the morning when the crew is asleep, especially if it involves boarding the ship while a full crew is onboard. One trick that some pirates have used is to plant a stowaway on a large ship. The stowaway then telephones the ships position back to the pirates who intercept the ship and take it over. Another pirate trick is to repaint a ship and get false papers for it. But unlike doing this as mentioned a few paragraphs above to sell a stolen cargo, you now advertise in the maritime papers as a carrier. You give a good price, get a cargo and just sail off with it getting both the cargo and the fee.
The tragedy of piracy is that not only are ships lost, but sometime crews are never heard from again, like the crew of 21 from the cargo ship M/V Hualien pirated off the coast of Taiwan. Then there was the crew of the M/V Erria Inge who were found in a refrigerator burned alive. Many pirates are murderers and in today's climate they might just kill you because of where you come from. So remember sailing the seas can be dangerous and every precaution should be taken.
Author: Kenneth J. McCormick
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