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Why don't the shipping companies give their ships a way to protect themselves from pirates?

The millions of dollars of ransom money they spend could be better spent on arming the ships. I think that if the pirates started getting shot at instead of just being able to come on to a boat without a problem it might make them think a little longer about whether or not it would be worth the risk.

Public Comments

1. The idea on the face of it is good, but then there is the whole problem of training of staff, and where do you stop? Living in a major international port I will be pretty nervous to have container ships with .50 cals all over them! The ship owners will then be faced with paying wages to match the perceived risk, and accepting additional liability for all errors of judgment and other issues. I can't see in this day how the USA would accept thousands of armed vessels entering it's ports - let alone the rest of the world. Not gonna happen. As soon as you raise the stakes the pirates will raise their weapon level and then we have an arms race. We'll end up with guided missile cargo ships. It's an issue for sure - boat owners have simply been shot from a distance when showing resistance and unless all domestic and commercial craft are re-manufactured as warships I don't see a simplistic solution.
2. then there's the whole "loss of life" thing to think about. "value of human life" & all that. an armed vessel way more likely to draw fire.
3. These posters have given the reasons typically given by the shipping companies, and they have some merit. However the problem is completely out of control and arming crews is quickly becoming the general sentiment in the industry. The days of advocating firehoses and axes are coming to an end. Israeli cargo ships, for instance, are all armed with Uzi submachine guns. There was an piracy incident where the Israelis executed all the pirates on the spot, no questions asked. Needless to say the pirates don't target Israeli ships anymore.
4. I think that this depends on how you look at it. The shipping companies have a lot of excuses, but the reality is that they prefer to pay a ransom to a bunch of thugs aka pirates and risk the lives of their crew members. Remember the ship and it's cargo are insured by such companies as Lloyd's of London. The crew, if injured or killed, what does the company have to pay? They have insurance in place for that too. But if they arm the crew and they kill or injure some criminals aka pirates then they might have to pay a lot more than simple loss or casualty insurance. I am pretty sure that US cargo ships don't get attacked as often as say, Panamanian flagged ships do. One, US ships are more likely to be armed because many of them are under contract to the US Navy's Military Sealift Command and those vessels all have small arms on-board. The crews are also trained on MSC contracted ships in small-arms use and in repelling terrorist and pirate attacks. Two, if a US cargo ship is attacked it is an attack against the US and the US often responds with military force. Look at the US response in 1975 "Mayaguez" incident. A US cargo ship was hijacked by the Khymer Rouge off the coast of Cambodia. The US military responded with overwhelming force. Although 15 American servicemen died in the assault to retake the ship, the vessel and it's American crew were rescued. The "Ukrainian" cargo ship that has been hijacked off the coast of Somalia is actually flagged under Belize. The owners are Ukrainian and most of the crew as well, but the state actually having jurisdiction over the vessel and it's crew is Belize. Many ships are flagged that way to avoid paying taxes, higher crew wages, having to meet more stringent maritime and enviromental laws etc. Here are some precautions which are taken from the "http://www.nauticalsupplyshop.com/artman/publish/article_2.shtml" website listed below- " Pirate precautions are taken whenever the ship passes through known pirate areas. Typically when passing through such an area massive security precautions are taken by the crew of the vessel. All doors are tied down from the inside thus allowing only one exit to be used by all personnel. This door is usually on the bridge where adequate bodies are available to secure it should unwanted persons get onboard at main deck level. Search lights are deployed to check the water around the vessel for foreign objects. Fire hoses are rigged and often charged to fight off and prevent anyone from clambering up the sides. A double watch is kept on the bridge with extra personnel doing overtime to keep a good lookout in all directions. And of course the vessels speed is pushed up to the maximum to make it as hard as possible to come alongside or to clamber onto from a smaller boat. " Keeping weapons on-board can be an option, but it would result in higher training costs, insurance costs and lawsuits in cases of excessive or unjustified force. The shipping companies are willing to take the risks assciated with pirate attacks and for the most part, they have not armed their crews. Doing so might save some lives but at the same time it would increase the risk that both the crew and the ship become casulties in the process. Another alternative would be to have a seperate armed and trained security contigent on-board cargo ships. This of course then goes back to cost and liability. When the cost and liability of pirate attacks outweighs the cost of additional armed security then the shipping companies will take action.