Piracy On The High Seas

Piracy is back in a big way off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden as you see in the news almost everyday.

Most of the attacks are on big cargo ships and oil tankers
However Recently there was an attack on the PONANT: an 850 ton three masted French yacht that was sailing back to the Med from the Seychelles with a crew of 30.
French commandos Finlay freed the yacht and its crew by a raid on the pirate's village in Somalia.

For years there were pirate attacks in the South China Sea but nothing like the lawless Somalia piracy in recent years,they are using AK-47 and RPGs to captured ships and demanding multimillion dollar ransoms from the ship owners.

The 20,000 annual shipping voyages across the Gulf to get to and from Suez Canal reduce the voyage by almost half, thus saving the ships owners huge amount of money compared to sailing around the Cape of Good Hope.

There are some sailing yachts traveling these waters on their way to the Indian Ocean the Red Sea and the Med, most of these small yachts are sailing in convoy in this area for better security but this is far from a guaranty of not being attacked.

At this time 24 nations have their navy patrolling and escorting their merchant shipping but it is impossible to patrol all 2.5 million sq miles of dangerous waters in this area.
That is why some nations have called on their ship owners to use private security contractors to protect their vessels from being attacked.

The largest ship to be ever captured by pirates was a Saudi VLCC 1,080 foot oil tanker the Sirius Star, with 100 million dollars worth of oil on board for a total of 250 million dollars in ship and cargo value and a crew of 25. the Somalian pirates demand $25 millions in ransom and they are still negotiating.

This situation demand immediate and dramatic solution either by serious private security or by international naval coalition.

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