Piracy on the high seas

[LA]

Somebody please splain to me how you hijack a 1080 foot ship with $100,000,000 worth of oil on board.  I just don't understand how anybody would put that kind of resource on the open seas without enough fire power to keep pirates or whatever you want to call them from getting on board and taking over.  You know the old story? â€" I have the “high” ground and will shoot you as you try to climb up the hill, or whatever.  If you don't ask really nicely to board my vessel before you try to board my vessel, I'll shoot you.

I am dying to know how a relatively small vessel could get to a vantage point that the perps  could board the vessel in the first place. I remember 30 years ago when sailboat captains in the Caribbean began to carry automatic weapons on board in order to ward off boarding from pirates.

Anybody  got a clue?
LA

[the_Journeyman]

I read an article in NatGeo and what they do is sneak up on the ship in the dark & use a grapling hook or similar device to board.  They're heavily armed with small automatic weapon (uzi's or similar) and simply overwhelm the crew with a use of force ~

JM

[Popeye the Sailor]

Ships like that don't have or need a large crew-maybe 25 guys or so on it. They were also out a considerable distance, making pirates in small boats unlikely.

[superjohn]

These pirates suck. They don't even have parrots or eye patches.   

[mitt]

I have a 15' boat, 100' of rope, and a semi-auto .22 rifle, anyone up for a trip?  100M$ sounds pretty good.



mitt

[swampduc]

I have a 15' boat, 100' of rope, and a semi-auto .22 rifle, anyone up for a trip?  100M$ sounds pretty good.



mitt

I'm in. I'll bring the eye patches. Aaaargh!

[Popeye the Sailor]

I have a 15' boat, 100' of rope, and a semi-auto .22 rifle, anyone up for a trip?  100M$ sounds pretty good.



mitt

Sure, but FYI, I'd be happy with the 15' boat, so I'm just going to shoot you with your own rifle. That's the problem with pirates. No respect.

[NuTTs]

Kaboom => http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7736885.stm   

[Scottish]

It was an Iranian vessel... so meh. Piracy is no joke but I giggled imagining Ahmajajanakmed's reaction... maybe some jumping up and down, and foot stomping. "Somalia has had no effective form of govt since '91 is in an islamic uprising"... well at least we don't have to worry about radicals from the middle east trying to take over the world as long as they are cuting each other knees out from under themselves.

[Bick]

Sure, but FYI, I'd be happy with the 15' boat, so I'm just going to shoot you with your own rifle.

Did you play a Power Ranger a few years ago? 


Oil prices are way down.  Don't these pirates keep up with the market?

[swampduc]

Do modern warships still have yardarms to string pirates up from? Prob the best way to deal with them.

[Slide Panda]

What usually happens is the pirates are on the ship in force before the crew knows what the hell is going on.  The Sirius Star is 1080' long - 1/5th of a mile with a crew of only 25 - making it really freakin' hard to defend.  As noted they usually attack at night , though this instance it was daylight.  Also as noted, they were well out to sea, so the crew wasn't really looking for small boats.

A cruise ship or two has fended off attacks with directed sound 'weapons' - perhaps the shippers need to start investing in this a bit more...

[the_Journeyman]

After reading the article in today's paper, I think we need to secretly man a tanker with a group of well-armed Marines and let 'em try to take that one!!!

JM

[Porsche Monkey]

I have a 15' boat, 100' of rope, and a semi-auto .22 rifle, anyone up for a trip?  100M$ sounds pretty good.



mitt

Ive got a semi-auto .22 also.  Have several different magazines that go with it too, one of thems a 50 rounder.  I'm in.  I'll bring the beer.

[MikeZ]

After reading the article in today's paper, I think we need to secretly man a tanker with a group of well-armed Marines and let 'em try to take that one!!!

JM

Can't do that.
It's entrapment.