Pondering Piracy

Saturday, November 22, 2008

The seizure of an oil tanker off the coast of Somalia has placed piracy on the global news agenda over the past week, and the issue has become a talking point on board as the fleet head north towards India. The eight Volvo Open 70s are heading south east of the Arabian Sea area where the Saudi-owned vessel was taken, however an exclusion zone will keep them in excess of 400 miles from the Somalian coastal waters. In fact, their current routing will take them east of the Maldives – some 1,500 miles away from the scene of the incident. Given what lay ahead on the second leg to Cochin, a security briefing, in conjunction with Dryad Maritime, an intelligence service, was held before the fleet departed Cape Town. Also discussed was how best to avoid collision with hundreds of errant fishing boats.

Besides the waters off the coast of Somalia, the regions of most concern are the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca, the stretch of water between west Malaysia and the Indonesian island of Sumatra that will feature in leg three. As a general rule of thumb, the risk of piracy was reckoned to be one percent, but as Race Director Jack Lloyd said at the briefing, "you need to have a level of awareness".And, according to Debbie Hadwen, the Chief Duty Officer, who’s team safeguard the boats 24-7 from race headquarters in Whiteley, there are practices and procedures in place to deal with any such incidents. “We are sending our three-hourly reports to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Organisation who are responsible for security and piracy in the region,” she said. “In return, they regularly report to us on what warships are in the waters the fleet are travelling to should assistance be needed.

“If one of the boats was to be approached we also have the support of Control Risks, our security advisers, standing by to deal with any situation.” Nonetheless, piracy remains a topic of discussion for a number of the crew members. In a live onboard video conference with CNN, Telefonica Black navigator Roger Nilson cited the Strait of Malacca near Sri Lanka, as an area of concern. Particularly on the next leg and two additional passages through Asia to follow.

“This is the first time we are getting into waters which have a risk of piracy so we are wary. Nobody has ever raced in this area before,” Nilson said. “We have to go through the Malacca Straits which is a high-risk piracy area.” ”If you have this experience once, you don’t want it again because the chances that you will survive the next time are probably not as good as the first time.”

”We had prepared some Molotov cocktails. We had some guys who were trained in the marine corps and we were ready to defend ourselves. I called in a May Day on the radio and we managed to get a 20,000-tonne tanker to turn around and basically saved our lives.” Guy Salter, the Media Crew Member aboard Ericsson 4, alluded to the Somalian incident in an overnight email.