Dangerous Waters-Modern Piracy On The High Seas.

[wolfhound227]

This book by John S. Burnett is one of the most disturbing books that I've read in a long time. I've seen the occational story about pirates in the news but never gave it much thought. This book changed that.

I had no idea that it was possible to steal at ship the size of the Exxon Valdez and hide it and disguise it's identity. With today's terrorist threat it is possible that one of these ships could be used as a giant fertalizer bomb. I live near the ocean and that bothers me.

This book lists a number of terrifying stories and though provoking theories. It also gave me a better appreciation (indirectly) of SEAL bording parties and the inherant dangers that they face from just climbing aboard a strange ship.

This is the relative website where incidents are reported:

http://www.iccwbo.org/ccs/imb_piracy/weekly_piracy_report.asp

It was hard for me to believe that large ships are such easy targets. I learned something.

[Purple36]

SE Asia is a hotbed of piracy. If I can find the website that deals with it, I'll post. It was different than the one you posted

[Daredevil]

That is a good book. When most people think of Piracy, they think of eyepatches, peglegs, and old wooden frigates. They don't realize it's still very much a problem today.

The idea of a large ship full of roving Pirates went out of style when the Navies of the world went to steam power. Now they use small fast boats to attack their targets.

[NewportBarGuy]

There was an article that appeared about a year and a half ago in the New York Times Magazine on this subject. It described the firsthand account of an Australian captain who had his ship seized. His description of the boarders indicated a high degree of sophistication and technical knowledge.

You can bet Lloyds of London hopes that current situational awareness of such actions and their possible use as insertion techniques; will lead to less incidents and thus less payouts for their company.

[mangda]

Some of the incidents where tankers are raided the cargo being transfered to a pirate tanker at sea, show a high likely hood that the businesses that initially loaded the cargo are also involved in stealing it.
The Tamil tigers pulled of a good one when they secretly supplied the ship and crew that was unknowingly contracted by the Sri Lankan army to pick up a shipment of 30000 82mm mortar shells from Zimbabwe, once on board never to be seen again.
The Tamil tiger shipping arm is known as the sea pigeons and is a mixed fleet of stolen vessels, pirates that tried to raid them would be in for a rude shock.