Pirate attacks up 14 percent worldwide

I sort of laughed at the thought of this at first, thinking about old school pirates but it's the real deal. HERE is the article and some clips:

In the July to September period alone, there were 72 incidents, up from 47 in the same period a year earlier, marking the second straight quarterly rise in attacks, the London-based IMB said through its piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

"The level of violence in high risk areas remain unacceptable. Pirates in Somalia are operating with impunity, seizing vessels hundreds of miles off the coast and holding the vessel and crew to ransom, making no attempt to hide their activity," he said.

Shiver me timbers!

The topic of pirates is one of those wierd ones that I just thought didn't happen anymore. I am sad to say, but "The Life Aquatic" was a movie that brought it to mind for me and made me look into it, only to find out that it does still happen.

I have never been a huge fan of ocean travel. Betweeen the Pirates, sharks and the occasional iceberg, why risk it?

reply to post by anhinga


Most of these "pirates" are armed with automatic weapons and sometimes RPG's, which make it easy to overpower a merchant vessel.

Besides the Somalia coast, the Straits of Malacca and the Gulf of Thailand are also "pirate" hot spots, because of the heavy merchant traffic.

Sure, but this is where the line of "terror" has to be drawn in the sand -- some of these are starving people, destitute w/ knowing nothing but slaughter from rogue gov't their whole life, some are illiterate and know no better. I'm not advocating "pirates" here or anything of that nature, but should it get ugly here, some economic collapse, the anti-nwo crowd will be packing when it comes to that last apple in the corner store.

reply to post by anhinga


Damn right they will be.

As for the subject of why you would want to go seafaring - think about it, the majority of the world's trade depends on merchant vessels; think of the new super-tankers China have been busting out - these things can carry nearly half a million tonnes of crude oil.

The ships alone are worth millions, and the bigger tankers can be worth billions, provided you can find a buyer for something that huge.

The fuel alone required to power the engines on board any ship runs a cost of tens of thousands of dollars.

Speaking as one whom is going to be working towards his cadetship, the subject of pirates interests me greatly, although i shan't be worrying about it too much (sticking to european ports), however i know of plenty of people whom will be working towards their officer of the watch certificate in the aforementioned 'hot spots'.

Let's talk about buisness - say you've just brought about 200,000 tonnes of lumber and need to get it into your warehouse - how do you intend to transport it (say if you were based in florida) if you brought it from a supplier in south america?

It would take weeks to transport it by train, whereas by ship it could be delivered to port within a single working week.



EDIT: Anywho - here's a cool map detailling piracy incidents around the world; www.icc-ccs.org...

[edit on 24-10-2007 by Throbber]

Pirate attacks you say? I'll giv'em the broad side guns if they get near my vessel. Pirates give us sailors a bad name.

reply to post by Captain Obvious


From your manner i take it you've served onboard a navy vessel?

It's not as easy for us maritimers - we don't have any cannons to defend ourselves with anymore.

The best we've got is the captain, who (although illegally) may or may not have a pistol stored in his safe.

EDIT: Holy crap... looking at that map only shows the amount of piracy activity recently, i can remember looking at that about a month ago and i swear there's a helluva load more activity in the gulf.

[edit on 24-10-2007 by Throbber]