The latest in anti-pirate satellite imaging has led the UN to make some interesting conclusions about security programs, according to the Danger Room from Wired.com
There have been a total 84 reported pirate incidents in just the last three months, UNOSAT says. Half of them occurred in or around the shipping “corridor” sent up by the international community to protect commercial vessels. And that corridor didn’t seem to do much to deter the pirates; their rate of successful attacks dipped only slightly (37 percent, versus 42 percent) inside the protected area. What the corridor did do was concentrate the pirate strikes. “The mean distance between reported attacks has fallen from 30.5km… to 24.6km after,” UNOSAT says.
Perhaps this has been asked elsewhere and I haven’t noticed but, if the corridor is successfully concentrating attacks, should we now expect a navy to deploy heavily-armed decoy ships to trick the pirates and destroy them upon contact or start taking hostages? I’m just reading out of the old anti-pirate playbooks at this point, and wondering when history will repeat itself.
Tell me about your purple past story
Will your story make me feel sorry?
Cowboy in a pool
Leaping in the boots
Turn around around
Come around around
Tell me about your purple past story
Will your story make me feel merry?
Sailor on a horse
Rockin’ back and forth
Turn around around
Come around around
Mr Tailor came to both cowboy and sailor man
He brought cowboy hat for sailor man
Yee-haw Yee-haw
But I’m a sailor
He brought sailor cap for cowboy
Heeve-ho Heeve-ho
Horse god gave hot aura for sailor man
Ocean gave cool halo for cowboy
Come on sing a song of my purple past!
Pirates are notorious for having shifting and disguised identities, which makes catching or even confronting them a major problem. The story of the pirate ship destroyed by the Indian Navy is a good example of the problem:
The alleged pirate ship that was blasted out of the water by the Indian Navy in the Gulf of Aden last week was actually a legitimate Thai fishing trawler that had been seized by pirates earlier in the day, the boat’s owner said Wednesday.
The hijacking of the Ekawat Nava 5 far out at sea; its apparent and immediate conversion to a “mother ship” for the pirates; the gunfight that led to its fiery nighttime sinking; and the harrowing tale of a lone surviving crewman illustrate the dangers and the legal undertow that surround many of the recent hijackings in East African waters.
The story covers the legal issues on the high seas as well as the firefight between the pirates and the Indian Navy that destroyed a private vessel and killed the crew, but did not harm the pirates.
A University of Hawaii sailing team member was involved in an 18 foot skiff accident this past weekend in Honolulu and has just passed away. Facebook has a Friends of Peter Wenner page with details:
His trapeze harness became tangled in the netting of the wing when the boat capsized. Peter was underwater on and off for a few minutes while they were trying to get him free. The safety boat acted immediately to call 911 and as soon as they were able to get him out of his harness they rushed him to Honolulu harbor in the support boat were an ambulance was waiting.
[…]
PJ died doing what he truly loved. Blasting downwind on the 18′ skiff at very high speeds with good friends. PJ said with a big smile to Willy that day now that he’s been skydiving and sailing on the 18′ skiff his life was complete. PJ was a real inspiration to us all. I know we will all remember him for the rest of our lives, smiling, laughing and cracking jokes. The sailing team are all going out on the big boat Tiare on Friday at 3pm to spread flowers and celebrate PJ’s life.
The picture below shows the Pegasus 18′ skiff in action, and the crew standing on one of the big wings with netting:
Tragic, even though they say the best way to go is doing what you love.
I will take a minute to think of PJ and his family, and also double and triple check my safety gear when I next go sailing. The harness is perhaps the most terrifying piece of gear to wear on a dinghy, as the hook easily can become tangled and pin a sailor.
