Maersk Alabama chases away pirates

Maersk Alabama chases away pirates       The Maersk Alabama, escaped another pirate attack last weekend in the Gulf of Aden.
   The famous victim of a 2009 attack, in which its captain was held hostage for three days on a lifeboat until U.S. Navy snipers killed the kidnappers, escaped the recent attack with the help of an armed security team, according to a Danish media report and two industry sources with deep ties to various sectors of the maritime industry.
   Five pirates in a speedboat rapidly approached the small container vessel on Saturday night and fled when private security guards onboard the vessel fired warning shots in the air, the Danish newspaper Borsen reported on its Web site.
   The vessel is owned and operated by Maersk Line Ltd., the U.S. subsidiary of Denmark's Maersk Line, the world's largest container shipping company.
   The attack occurred in the international transit corridor patrolled by international naval forces in the Gulf of Aden, according to the sources, who asked not to be named because of the sensitive nature of their business relationships with Maersk. The vessel was on its way from Salaleh, Oman, to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
   Both sources stressed the Maersk Alabama never was in any danger and was never fired upon.
   Such probes, to test the ability of merchant ships to defend themselves or take evasive action, are relatively common in the Gulf of Aden, but the Maersk Alabama attracts more attention when it encounters pirates because of its history.
   Somali pirates seized the container vessel off the East Coast of Somalia in April 2009 and then abandoned the vessel in favor of a lifeboat with Capt. Richard Phillips as a hostage. The tense situation continued for several days until a U.S. Navy SEAL team rescued Phillips, killing three pirates and taking one into custody.
   In late 2009, the Maersk Alabama was strafed by small arms fire from pirates attempting to board the ship. A private security team aboard the vessel, which Maersk Line Ltd. had hired after the previous incident, fired back and used a long-range acoustic device that emits a painful high-frequency sound to drive off the pirates. The captain also employed evasive maneuvers to make it difficult for pirates to get in boarding position.
   Some industry and government officials suspect the Maersk Alabama may be targeted by pirates as a trophy ship whose capture would bring bragging rights in the pirate community, avenge the deaths of 2009 attackers and produce American hostages.
   One analyst suggested Maersk Line Ltd. would be better off renaming the vessel so that it doesn't attract attention from marauders.
   'Why not do what most people in the transport industry do when there is a tragedy and retire the name, retire the route, retire the number?' he said.
   Renaming wouldn't accomplish much, the other source said, because pirate intelligence isn't that good.
   'They don't know who they're attacking,' he said, pointing to pirates who have attacked U.S, German, Danish and other warships by mistake. 'They pick ships they think are low and slow.'
   Low refers to vessels with low freeboards, or the distance between the waterline and the deck. Among the best practices recommended by the U.S. government and shipping organizations is for vessels to maintain maximum speed when traveling in pirate-infested waters.
   The ship's original name would not be difficult to figure out either because there is a name trail associated with its shipping documents and many maritime vessel libraries or news accounts on the Internet would show its previous name, the second source said.
   The analyst said the pirates involved in Saturday's incident were probably were unaware of the vessel they were attacking, but any pirates that are able to capture the Maersk Alabama would quickly realize its significance even if they had not specifically targeted the vessel.
   The captors would quickly get in touch with other pirate groups with a vendetta against the United States and sell them the American hostages, he said.
   The other source acknowledged that recent events have raised the stakes for American crews. He pointed to a recent situation in which a group of Somali pirates released the Asphalt Venture, an asphalt/bitumen tanker and seven crewmembers after receiving a $3.6 million ransom, but kept eight Indian hostages in an effort to get the Indian government to release 100 Somali pirates captured by the Indian Navy in recent months.
   'That certainly gives you pause to make sure a U.S. ship doesn't get hijacked. We don't have the same confidence level that the ransom negotiations would play out the same way as in the past. The model has been broken,' the expert said.
   'It's a different environment now than it was before.' ' Eric Kulisch