Desparate criminals, thugs, thieves and even terrorists. Ask any sailor and he’ll tell you, that is a pirate.
While sitting back in the comfort of your homes, watching the high seas drama of pirates and U.S. sailors off the coast of Somalia unfold before your eyes, echoes of Johnny Depp and Pirates of the Caribbean might come to mind. But for people like Capt. Rick Taylor, the reality of piracy and the dangers of commerce on the high seas is more than a romanticized Disney film; it’s a fact of life.
Taylor, 54, is a retired merchant mariner living in Currituck County. He was a skipper operating freighters not unlike the Maersk Alabama, that was taken by Somali pirates and recaptured by its crew; but not before the ship’s captain, Richard Phillips, was taken hostage and then rescued days later by Navy Seal snipers.
Taylor, who retired from a life at sea in 2006, followed the drama closely, even keeping tabs on the progress through channels not available to the general public. He says from all appearances, Capt. Phillips and his crew did all the right things when the pirates, who were looking to capture the ship and its crew in hopes of a handsome ransom, boarded them.
Taylor says when pirates board a freighter, it is common for the captain and crew to lock down the entire interior portion of the ship. He says the only interior area accessible to the pirates would then be the wheelhouse because they can shoot out the windows.
“I would say lock yourselves in your rooms,” says Taylor of the incident. “Now, how he (Phillips) ended up the odd man out, I don’t know.”
According to reports by the Associated Press, crew members say Phillips had his men lock themselves inside the ship and then handed himself over to the pirates to save his crew. The ship’s captain is being hailed as a hero for his actions, something Taylor would agree with, he says.
“I would agree with the popular opinion,” he says.
As a skipper, Taylor has not found himself eye to eye with pirates, but has had close calls of his own. During his days as a mate and a skipper, traveling through places such as the Straits of Malacca near Malaysia and the Philippines, it wasn’t unusual to see pirates board large freighters.
“Those pirates would rob you,” Taylor says of the Indonesian pirates. “We had some attempts.”
And like the commercial ships passing through the Gulf of Aden around the Horn of Africa today, the only defenses Taylor had were bright spotlights and fire hoses.
Ships carrying commercial cargo are not typically armed, he explains. He says the captain might have a .38 caliber pistol in the safe where he keeps the payroll, but that’s about it. His only defense against the pirates of Indonesia and the skiffs they employed to approach the ships, was to see to it they did not successfully board the ship by hosing them down with high-powered water hoses.
In the case of the Somali pirates, they are approaching these ships in high-speed boats, armed with AK-47s and other assault weapons. Once aboard the ships, it is not difficult for them to overpower the crew and take them, and their ship, hostage.
Taylor says that while it might seem to some to be logical to arm a commercial crew, there are a number of issues to consider.
Firstly, aside from the ship’s officers, there is the crew. These are usually men who sign on as able seamen to do the ship’s general work. There are questions as to whether or not these men, not typically trained in any type of combat, would be willing to defend the ship with force. Then there is the question of liability: the shipping company is liable on a number of accounts.
Secondly, there are also the rules of engagement to consider. Taylor says defending a ship would be fine, but the sailors are bound to the rules that say they cannot fire until pirates have actually boarded them.
While Taylor has not had run-ins with Somali pirates, he has spent time in Mogadishu, the country’s capital city, a place, he says, where goats were just as comfortable on the steps of the government building as the government officials.
Working on a ship hauling food aid to the country in 1980, he says looking back on his experience, while it was fun and there are a great many stories to be told, he sees now how dangerous the port was even then.
More recently, however, just before the official start of the war in Iraq, Taylor was captain of a freighter hauling military equipment to Kuwait. His ship would travel around the Horn of Africa, passing Somalia on its way through the Gulf of Aden, to the Middle Eastern country, accompanied by armed U.S. Navy sailors.
“We weren’t attacked, but we were approached,” he says. “It’s unsettling.”
Taylor says he has been following the incidents of piracy off the coast of Somalia. It has been, he says, only a matter of time before a U.S. flagged ship was captured.
Taylor says the most important thing for commercial ships to do is to have a plan. He says without a plan, the results can be disastrous.
A training simulator for commercial skippers, involving Navy Seals, proved that, he explains.
The skippers were taking a course on the simulator, and had no idea what was about to befall them. Seals, acting as masked terrorists, boarded the ship simulator and surprised the group of captains, throwing them on the ground, hitting them with their rifles and yelling at them.
“They made it real,” he says.
The skippers, on the spur of the moment, began to put together a plan of action. One of the Seals, they figured, was a prime target for their assault.
“When we had a chance, we grabbed him,” says Taylor.
But the other Seal member quickly put the actions of the skippers to an end. That Seal, says Taylor, responded to their insurrection and quickly “killed” them all with an AK-47.
“It just showed us that if you don’t have a plan, you’re screwed,” he says.
Source: Dailyadvance.com
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