French water

[Roberto]

If my problem was that my boat was in distress, with grave and imminent danger to life, and "in the vicinity" means that the RN vessel was the closest to me and able to render timely assistance, then yes of course I would expect them to come to my aid.

I'd say that whatever flag is one's boat, if a RN vessel (or whatever other Navy) is the closest I would expect them to help.
Possibly, under request by the local official SAR MRCC

 

[Gary Fox]

Why would you bring a Somalian pirates thread into one discussing a hypothetical situation in French waters?

Whatever...

It definitely has tangential relevance; I was talking about the Chandlers in their yacht, 'Lynn Rival'. The victims wrote a book about their ordeal and there's a wiki page, plus numerous reports and articles.
Somalian pirates, in international waters, seized a British-flagged cruising yacht, in full view of RFA 'Wave Knight' and her Royal Marines; the ship and her crew were forbidden to help, as scandalously ordered by a senior naval office worker in London.

 

[Gary Fox]

There's a poster of this parish with a Youtube channel called 'Sailing Gently' , and yesterday he posted a story about his small yacht being towed, by a French warship, out of the Alderney Race in a storm..only for the warship to get the towline wrapped round her own prop..and it gets more exciting, I won't give away the story but well worth a few minutes viewing!

 

[Koeketiene]

It definitely has tangential relevance; I was talking about the Chandlers in their yacht, 'Lynn Rival'. The victims wrote a book about their ordeal and there's a wiki page, plus numerous reports and articles.
Somalian pirates, in international waters, seized a British-flagged cruising yacht, in full view of RFA 'Wave Knight' and her Royal Marines; the ship and her crew were forbidden to help, as scandalously ordered by a senior naval office worker in London.

All too familiar.

For over 5 years I worked on the NATO oparations staff of Task Group 508 (Operation Ocean Shield - the NATO anti-piracy operation off Somalia).

If memory serves, late 2011 or early 2012, we had an incident off the Yemini/Omani coast.
A container vessel operated by a Danish operator was boarded by Somali pirates.
RFA Fort Victoria (with a detachment of 15 RM commandos aboard) was our nearest asset and was prompty dispatched to the scene. She was about 20 hours sailing away.
We set about obtaining permission from the flag state, ships owner and ships operator to carry out an opposed boarding. That's the kind of boarding where you expect you can be shot at and intend to return fire.
The pirated vessel was about 3 days sailing away from its intended anchorage off Somalia.
By the skiffs recovered on scene by an EUNAVFOR vessel we were able to identify which 'pirate king' was running the operation so we knew where the ship would be heading.
For the next 24 hours I liaised closely with my RN opposite number (the Duty Fleet Controler - also based in Northwood but in a different building).
The intention was to carry out the boarding just before sunrise the following morning.
A couple of hours before the operation was supposed to take place we asked COM MARCOM (who incidently was a RN admiral) for the final green light.
We never received that green light, but 30 minutes later RFA Fort Victoria 'chopped out' of the NATO Force and reverted back to national control. No explanation was given.
Three days later, when the pirated vessel was anchored off Somalia, NATO got RFA Fort Victoria 'back'.
Eventually, the reason/excuse for not giving permission to carry out the boarding was that the RN ROEs (Rules of Engagement) only permitted an opposed boarding when our own forces outnumbered the opponents 3 to 1.
Six pirates had been observed on board and we 'only' had 15 RM commandos.
That's all very well, but it would have been a lot easier for all involved if the RN had communicated that particular ROE to us (NATO) before we assigned RFA Fort Victoria to the task.
At the time we could also have dispatched a Spanish ship (with marines aboard) in the TF to the scene.

Such was life in the military.

 

[Stemar]

Some things don't change. When politicians get involved, it all goes to crap, whether it be military, health or other services, but for the military, politicians seem to have a gift to send 'em in when they shouldn't and vacillate or back off completely when they should go in.

 

[john_morris_uk]

All too familiar.

For over 5 years I worked on the NATO oparations staff of Task Group 508 (Operation Ocean Shield - the NATO anti-piracy operation off Somalia).

If memory serves, late 2011 or early 2012, we had an incident off the Yemini/Omani coast.
A container vessel operated by a Danish operator was boarded by Somali pirates.
RFA Fort Victoria (with a detachment of 15 RM commandos aboard) was our nearest asset and was prompty dispatched to the scene. She was about 20 hours sailing away.
We set about obtaining permission from the flag state, ships owner and ships operator to carry out an opposed boarding. That's the kind of boarding where you expect you can be shot at and intend to return fire.
The pirated vessel was about 3 days sailing away from its intended anchorage off Somalia.
By the skiffs recovered on scene by an EUNAVFOR vessel we were able to identify which 'pirate king' was running the operation so we knew where the ship would be heading.
For the next 24 hours I liaised closely with my RN opposite number (the Duty Fleet Controler - also based in Northwood but in a different building).
The intention was to carry out the boarding just before sunrise the following morning.
A couple of hours before the operation was supposed to take place we asked COM MARCOM (who incidently was a RN admiral) for the final green light.
We never received that green light, but 30 minutes later RFA Fort Victoria 'chopped out' of the NATO Force and reverted back to national control. No explanation was given.
Three days later, when the pirated vessel was anchored off Somalia, NATO got RFA Fort Victoria 'back'.
Eventually, the reason/excuse for not giving permission to carry out the boarding was that the RN ROEs (Rules of Engagement) only permitted an opposed boarding when our own forces outnumbered the opponents 3 to 1.
Six pirates had been observed on board and we 'only' had 15 RM commandos.
That's all very well, but it would have been a lot easier for all involved if the RN had communicated that particular ROE to us (NATO) before we assigned RFA Fort Victoria to the task.
At the time we could also have dispatched a Spanish ship (with marines aboard) in the TF to the scene.

Such was life in the military.

I also know something about that incident, so I’ll give a bit more info. IIRC. The marines hadn’t officially got their ad qual for opposed boarding and so the powers that be were reluctant to give the authority. It’s easy to blame the admiral but as I was told, he asked the minister and it was the minister who said no.
The military are beholden to the government ultimately (and rightly so). The government approve and set the ROE (under guidance as to what is practical of course).

 

[john_morris_uk]

Why would you bring a Somalian pirates thread into one discussing a hypothetical situation in French waters?

Whatever...

You’d need to direct that question to Gary…. He thought it was relevant.

 

[Koeketiene]

I also know something about that incident, so I’ll give a bit more info. IIRC. The marines hadn’t officially got their ad qual for opposed boarding and so the powers that be were reluctant to give the authority. It’s easy to blame the admiral but as I was told, he asked the minister and it was the minister who said no.
The military are beholden to the government ultimately (and rightly so). The government approve and set the ROE (under guidance as to what is practical of course).

A valid reason.
But it would have been a great help to all concerned if the RN had communicated this as soon as we tasked RFA Fort Victoria.
We would then have dispatched SPS Cantbrica (IIRC) who was further from the scene but she could still have intercepted the highjacked merchantman before she reached safe anchorage off Somalia.

In my experience, the RN was extremely risk-averse when it came to counter-piracy and there were civilians involved.
On quite a few occasions, we didn't receive green light from our RN admiral for operations that did not even involve RN units.

 

[Roberto]

[QUOTE="Koeketiene, post: 7700777, member:]
A container vessel operated by a Danish operator was boarded by Somali pirates.
[/QUOTE]

Is it the one which inspired the "A highjacking" Danish movie
"Borgen at sea", for anyone into tv series

 

[Koeketiene]

Is it the one which inspired the "A highjacking" Danish movie
"Borgen at sea", for anyone into tv series

I have not seen this particular movie, but it very well may have been.
NATO was in no way involved in negotiations for the release of vessels, but the ransom drop seems realistic.

 

[john_morris_uk]

A valid reason.
But it would have been a great help to all concerned if the RN had communicated this as soon as we tasked RFA Fort Victoria.
We would then have dispatched SPS Cantbrica (IIRC) who was further from the scene but she could still have intercepted the highjacked merchantman before she reached safe anchorage off Somalia.

In my experience, the RN was extremely risk-averse when it came to counter-piracy and there were civilians involved.
On quite a few occasions, we didn't receive green light from our RN admiral for operations that did not even involve RN units.

As I said, we were under direction from above and some of those ministers were EXTREMELY risk averse. My feeling is that they felt that they'd had their fingers burned from previous use of the military.