Gulf of Aden and Somalian
waters Piracy
If you think the piracy and hijacking in the Gulf of Aden
is dead now, you need to think again.
Yes, it has declined considerably but it still exists. And the
pirates are looking for a window to strike again.
Blaming illegal fishing trade in Somalian waters, Somalis are considering
the piracy again.
The seas around West Africa remain the world’s most dangerous for piracy, the International Maritime Bureau’s (IMB) latest report reveals.
Of the 75 seafarers taken hostage onboard or kidnapped for ransom worldwide so far this year, 62 were captured in the Gulf of Guinea – off the coasts of Benin, Cameroon, Guinea, Nigeria and Togo. Worldwide, the International Chamber of Commerce’s IMB Piracy Reporting Centre recorded 78 incidents of piracy and armed robbery against ships in the first half of 2019, compared with 107 incidents for the same period of 2018. Overall, 57 vessels were boarded successfully, representing 73% of all attacks.
Pirates killed one person, took 38 crewmembers hostage, and kidnapped a further 37 for ransom.
High-Risk Area
The high-risk area has been designated based on the pirate’s
activities and areas where most of the attack took place.
HRA
since 01 May 2019
This high-risk area is bounded by:
In the Southern Red Sea:
Northern Limit: Latitude 15° 00’N
In the Indian Ocean a line linking:
From the territorial waters off coast of east Africa at
Latitude 05° 00’S to 050° 00’E
Then to positions:
Lat: 00° 00’ N Lat: 10° 00’ N Lat: 14° 00’ N
Long: 055° 00’ E Long: 060° 00’ E Long: 060° 00’ E
Then a bearing 310° to the territorial waters off the
Arabian Peninsula.
In the Gulf of Oman: Area west of Longitude 58 E
Changes
are in force since 1 May 2019
The industry associations
will continue to monitor developments to the security situation and will adjust
the HRA again if and when the situation warrants it.
This is the area where it is considered that there is a higher risk of piracy.
The Admiralty chart Q6099 is the guidance chart for these areas
and must be on board before transit to the high-risk area.
The chart shows the clear picture of the area designated as
High-risk area.
Voluntary
reporting Area
Apart from HRA, UKMTO has set a voluntary reporting area where
vessels are encouraged to report their activities.
This area can be seen as purple color in the Admiralty
chart Q6099.
Internationally
Recommended Transit Corridor (IRTC)
The area near the Gulf of Aden is the most crucial area when it
comes to the Somalian piracy.
Most of the naval and Military forces focus on this area.
But this is still a large area and the resources are scarce.
To allow the Naval and military forces to concentrate on a
comparatively smaller area, a transit corridor has been identified.
Ships are strongly advised to use this corridor to pass the Gulf
of Aden.
A group transit schedule has also been developed for this area
based on the ship’s transit speed.
These timings are the recommendations. Of course, no one would
like to delay the ship for 16-18 Hours to transit in these timings.
But if we can arrive the IRTC on these timings with just a
couple of hours of delay, we must follow these transit timings.
The group transit through IRTC is not a convoy.
There will not be any naval escort ships either. The corridor
just provides the security forces a defined area to concentrate upon.
When we arrive in this area, we must not wait for anyone in this
area even if we do not see any other ship or warships.
Reporting
Part of Gulf of Aden crossing
When we are transiting this high-risk area, there are lots of
reporting that we need to make.
We must comply with all these reporting.
Let us see what all reportings we need to make.
1.
Reporting to the hull insurance company (if required)
Most of the Hull & Machinery insurance companies would want
to be notified if the ship intends to cross the HRA.
If so, follow the company’s instructions to notify the H&M
insurer. The initial notification may be required well before the vessel’s
entry into the high-risk area.
Some H&M insurers may need to be notified 48 hours prior
entering HRA, other may need 7 days notice.
These instructions must be followed to avoid losing on any
damage claims during the vessel’s transit through HRA.
2.
Register the vessel with MSCHOA
Before entering the VRA, the vessel must register the vessel to
the MSC-HOA.
What is MSCHOA?
The Maritime security center
– Horn of Africa (MSCHOA) is the planning in coordinating center
for EU Naval Forces (EUNAVFOR).
The MSCHOA collects the data from the ships and has that
available to the naval security forces when required in case of rescue or
providing help to the ships.
But, MSCHOA needs to have the ship’s voyage data for it to be
able to share it with naval forces.
The vessel is required to send this data to the MSCHOA as a
process to register the vessel.
To register with MSCHOA, the vessel needs to fill and send the
MSCHOA registration form to the email postmaster@mschoa.org
After successful registration, the vessel will receive an email
as the response to the vessel’s registration with MSCHOA.
3.
Report to UKMTO
The United Kingdom Marine
Trade Operations (UKMTO) acts as an information bridge between
international maritime trade and the security forces.
When vessel enters the voluntary reporting area, an initial
report needs to be sent to the UKMTO.
Thereafter vessel needs to send the daily position updates at
0800 Hrs UTC.
Any suspicious activity or attack on the ship need to be
reported to UKMTO. For this purpose, it is advisable to have the contact
details of the UKMTO ready near the communication console of the ship.
Finally, upon exit from the high-risk area, vessel need to send
the final report to UKMTO.
Prepare
the vessel for transit
The most important part of Gulf of Aden transit is
preparing the vessel. Before the vessel enters the high-risk area, the ship
needs to be ready in all respect.
Vessel’s preparedness can be divided into three parts
§ Preparedness
of the ship to deter boarding
§ Preparedness
of the ship’s Citadel
§ Preparedness
of the crew to detect and respond to the security threat.
1.
Preparedness of the ship to deter boarding
The 5th edition of best
management practices for protection against Somalia based piracy (BMP5) gives
detailed instructions on deploying the barrier to deter boarding of the
pirates.
This along with the company’s circulars and SSP should be
referred to deploy the available barriers.
These barriers include
§ Fixing
the razor wires along the ship’s side.
§
Water-jet
guns on the ship side
§ Spikes
on the ship side
Some ships may even have the electric fencing along the ship
side which can give a non-lethal electric shock.
Even if there is no electric fencing, BMP-5 suggests
placing this placards along the ship’s side on razor wires.
This warning sign is in Somalian language stating “Danger High
Voltage electric Barrier”.
Apart from the ship side, the barriers need to be there around
accommodation area.
The idea is to avoid the pirates to get into accommodation for
as long as possible.
For this reason, the access ladders to each of the outer
accommodation ladders are fenced with razor wires.
Some ships even remove the ladders on the outer accommodation
decks by removing the bolts with which it is fixed.
Whatever ways are provided in the ship security plan and
available on board must be used.
All possible arrangements must be in place to deter pirate’s
boarding the vessel and when boarded to deter them to get inside the
accommodation and wheelhouse area.
Apart from the access barriers, ship security alarm system must
be tested before entry into the high-risk area.
Check the company’s requirement for testing of SSAS.
2.
Preparedness of the ship’s Citadel
The concept of the citadel is one of the
most effective anti-piracy measure used since Somalia piracy surfaced.
Why?
The pirates invent new ways to break the barriers installed to
deter their boarding.
For example, for the razor wire, they just fix a hook
with a rope. Another end of the rope has some heavy weight attached to it.
They throw the weight end into the water. This takes some part
of the razor wire down along with the weight.
This part is enough for the pirates to board the vessel.
But even when the pirates have boarded the vessel, there is
still hope of getting rescued. Only if everyone hides in the Citadel.
What is citadel?
The dictionary meaning of citadel is
"a
strong castle in or near a city, where people can shelter from danger,
especially during a war"
With respect to ship security, usually engine room is designated
as Citadel.
But to be called a citadel, it needs to have few basic things
for the crew to survive in it for few days.
There need to be
§ Water
and food for the crew to survive for few days
§ Few
Blankets
§ Iridium
satellite phone to make contact with company security officer and/or Naval
forces
§ Strengthened
entry points to not to allow easy access to the pirates
Few ships will also have CCTV cameras installed at various key
locations with the viewing screen in the citadel.
This allows the crew in Citadel to monitor the pirate activities
on the ship while they have locked themselves in the Citadel.
The content and equipments of the citadel must be checked before
arrival into the high-risk area and it needs to be as per the company
guidelines.
The Iridium phone must be tested by calling a number in the
company or to the ship’s main satellite phone.
3.
Preparedness of the crew to detect and respond to the security threat
The most important part of the HRA transit is the preparedness
of the crew.
Before arrival, crew must be trained for their duties during the
transit period.
As the ship needs to have extra look out posted during HRA transit,
a watch schedule must be made and discussed with all crew.
Apart from that, the access points must be discussed during the
crew briefing.
During daytime, only one access is allowed for the crew if the crew
needs to work on deck. This one access must be agreed and controlled by the
officer on watch.
All other access points need to be sealed before entering the
HRA.
The crew needs to be trained for a citadel drill.
If the company has defined the procedures for citadel drill,
that should be followed. If not then a citadel drill plan can be discussed and
agreed with all crew.
Code yellow, Code Red, Lockdown is one of the most common
citadel drill plans.
This plan has three stages.
For Code Yellow, Master then announces “Piracy Piracy Code
Red”. This means that the pirate boat is attempting to board the vessel.
With this announcement, all crew members muster at muster
station and all persons need to be accounted for.
For Code Red, Master then announces “Piracy Piracy Code
Red”. This means that the pirate boat is attempting to board the vessel.
With this announcement, all the crew members mustered at
the muster station need to proceed to the citadel.
In the last stage, Master then announces “Piracy
Piracy Lockdown”. This means that the pirates have succeeded in boarding
the vessel and the bridge team is proceeding to the citadel for lockdown.
When the bridge team arrives at the Citadel, they say a
pre-agreed password to the crew inside the citadel.
Only upon hearing the correct password the crew inside would
open the citadel.
Many companies provide armed guards for crossing the high risk
area. This is the safest option for the vessel considering the fact that not a
single ship with armed guards on board has been boarded by pirates.
When planned to transit with armed guards, vessel must report to
the relevant departments.
Vessel may need to divert to pick up the guards before HRA and
drop them after the HRA.
In this case, charterers need to be informed well in advance
about this diversion.
Mast should check with the company if Hull & machinery
underwriters need to be informed about the boarding of armed guards.
In most of the case, H&M underwriters need to be informed
about the time, date, position and details of the armed guards boarded.
If it is required, inform the H&M underwriters when armed
Guards board the vessel and when they leave the vessel after crossing the HRA.
Security
Assessment by Armed guards
Once armed guards board the vessel, they will do a security
assessment of the vessel and will advise on any security gaps that may need to
be addressed.
They may wish to have the crew briefed about the security and
may require to conduct one Citadel security drill.
Under their standard procedures, armed guards need to test fire
few bullets. If so, check your company’s procedures if they are allowed to test
fire.
Conclusion
Dealing with the piracy
has been one of the main challenges for the shipping trade for many years.
Piracy and hijacking in
the Somalian waters has increased the stakes many fold.
Security measures
highlighted in the “Best management practices 05th edition” reduces these
risks significantly.
If the ship and crew are prepared as per these
measures chances of pirates succeeding to take control of the vessel would be
minimal.
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