In Depth

Piracy Expert: Maersk Alabama One Slice of a Huge Pirate Problem

Roger Hawkes of Global Industries discusses why some of the debate around piracy this month is misplaced, and how piracy has been a problem for years

By Joan Goodchild, Senior Editor

Page 5

Then you get into security measures, actually physical security measures: Whether they are non-lethal or lethal. You don't bring a knife to a gun fight. If you are going to put non-lethal technologies onboard a vessel, you have to understand they have a very limited capability to prevent your vessel from being boarded. In Southeast Asia, where the pirates are typically not armed with guns, non-lethal technology would be more effective. Things like high-intensity spotlights, the long range acoustical device, that type of stuff.

But you should consider if it makes sense to put those systems in an area where you have armed individuals coming at you. You have to put a guy behind those technologies and they have people with guns coming at them, they will be shooting at that person, and eventually that person may give up and run for cover. So those systems can be defeated.

The main thing is you have to build your defenses and make them adequate to the threat of area you are going to be in. If you can't do that, that it comes down to a pure risk analysis of: What are we going to do? Then you get into management decisions and you may have to make some tough calls. Do you employ armed security? That may be an option. I am personally not a proponent of having armed security on a vessel for several reasons; primarily because tactically, if you are arming the vessel itself, then you are kind of making a 'Custards last stand.' If you are going to employ your weapons, you are going to do it at very close range whether when the pirates are along side, or if they have already boarded the vessel. That means you are going to get into a shoot out on deck. Even if you have trained security professionals, once you have bullets flying on the deck of a civilian vessel, you're going to end up getting somebody killed.

I'm a big fan of doing what navies all across the world have always done. That is, using armed boats to go out and interdict the pirates as they are approaching. That ties up the pirates at sea and delays them from being to get access to the vessel. That gives the vessel time to maneuver, increase speed, put the crew into lock down. And it takes the gunfight to the pirates instead of letting the pirates bring the gunfight to the crew.