Piracy and security information

[Talbot]

The Worldwide Threats to Shipping Report, is compiled by US and published weekly by the Office of Naval Intelligence, contains a summary of recent piracy acts and hostile actions against commercial shipping worldwide, organized by geographic region. The report also includes any recent developments in the efforts to prevent piracy and prosecute the aggressors.

see here

 

[FullCircle]

Thanks Mark, a sobering read.

 

[jonic]

Thanks for that.

 

[Ariadne]

Top marks, excelent find and link!!

 

[AndrewB]

Most interesting, thanks, Talbot. I suspect that the pattern - and the risk - would be rather different for yachts. Somalia/Yemen and Central America must still be the biggest problem areas for us. Places like Brazil and Malaysia where there are attacks on commercial shipping, I understand there is little problem for yachts.

 

[Swagman]

Thanks Talbot - informative impartial source.
Upside (unless I missed more) is that only 2 yachts piracy / robbery incidents are listed for the whole month worldwide. IMHO not bad stats on Oceans that thousands are cruising.
JOHN

 

[KellysEye]

Don't like to be the purveyor of bad news but the list is incomplete, it seems to be a commercial shipping list with the odd yacht incident thrown in. To get an idea of yacht crime in the Caribbean take a look at http://www.caribcruisers.com/security.htm

There is also some info on Venezuela at
http://www.onsa.org.ve/direcciones/asuntos/sm/pirateria/#as
(you need to speak Spanish).

Even those lists are incomplete, not everybody reports incidents.

 

[CodStewart]

Fank you very much.

 

[Sea Devil]

I think many of the 'piracy reporting' places are really only interested in merchant shipping being attacked - after I was attacked and robbed in the Gulf of Aden and wrote about it several of the 'agencies' got in touch - They regard Piracy as occurs in the Gulf of Aden - off Somalia and the Malacca straights on the Indonesian side - as being organised and Pirates frequently knowing which 'container(s) have the items they are after - or the entire ship.

The agencies regard attacks on Yachts as 'mugging' because a lot of it is random - opportunistic. I think that is a fairly accurate description of a lot of what happens to us in small boats... Personally I would not risk the Gulf of Aden area again - things have turned very nasty there recently with the pirates killing first and robbing after. Malacca straights on the Malay side is very safe with no reported yacht incidents for ages and most of the rest of the world is OK apart from the random attack as you would get in the streets of London or NY.

There is some stuff on my web site about pirates but frankly most of it is chance encounters and frequently drug related - some yachties do buy and not always pay the correct price then get 'done'!!

Michael

 

[Shakey]

Also more info here:

Royal Navy Shipping Reports

 

[Fin]

Which incidents "recently" are you talking about? I've had a look and can't see incidents like that occuring recently. Trying to find as much info as possible, I'm down that way in the next few months.

 

[Sea Devil]

The year before last a couple of American yachts 'resisted' a pirate attack from the same lot that did me (I think). They opened fire with a shot gun and rammed and sank one of the boats. 40 odd civilians from Somalia being smuggled to the Yemen drowned but the other pirate boats stopped the attack and picked up their mates from the water. The following year the same mob shot up and killed all on board the first yacht they encountered before robbing them - so the level of violence has escalated... As you can see in the articles on my web site after the attack on me I still felt the 'short cut' through the Red Sea was a reasonable risk. Now I would not go that way for anything.. seriously dangerous.

Statistically over the last 10 years or so, yachts have been attacked and robbed in the Gulf of Aden and Southern Red Sea at the rate of around 1%-2% -- or to put it another way roughly 200 yachts make the passage each season and one or two are attacked each year.

Michael