Innovation to counter maritime piracy in Somalia

Professional Mariner Forum
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Innovation to counter maritime piracy in Somalia

This is Capt. Shyam Paliwal. Currently, I am on a personal mission to ensure the security of our fellow seafarers in Gulf of Aden. To ensure this I have come out with a latest innovation to prevent pirates from boarding a vessel. Please see the video of this innovation here . Your comments and suggestions for improvements are welcome.

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Welcome to gcaptain-

Hmm…

Let me see if I have this straight-

your company addresses the inadequacies of using high pressure water streams against pirates armed with automatic weapons/rpg’s- by selling expensive equipment- that … uhhh… uses high pressure water streams against pirates armed with automatic weapons and rpg’s?

Am I missing something?

Also- your page background is one of the “free” options- for Yahoo websites.

Some might view that as a sign of amateurism.

I’m not being mean- I applaud your initiative- but expect the above remarks when you try to sell your ideas. Better now than in a sales meeting.:slight_smile:

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Capt. Paliwal…if you are indeed a mariner…your bio on the website makes no reference to the fact??

you “management” types need to forget the “fire-hose” tactic that was taught in early security training…it was laughable then and is now not humorous at all as mariner’s are beginning to lose their lives at the hands of these “pirates”!!

don’t believe your solution will be too well received by those mariners having to crew these vessels!!

suggest you first ask yourself why are merchant vessel’s being targeted with lethal force…could it be that they are typically unarmed and as such
are capable of only offering limited resistance…well DUH!!it is not rocket science!!

IMHO…a tactic which was part of my training…“he who has the latest, biggest, and best toys wins”…suggest when avoidance is not an option and threatened by a lethal force you should respond in kind with a superior lethal force…if enough of these “boarding” vessels were sunk before being allowed to get close aboard maybe the “word” would get out and the frequency of these incidents would subside??

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I kinda like this approach… call me a simpleton…

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I applaud your initiative but is flawed

  1. The time it takes the jets to rotate back and forth is to long.
  2. The reason the pirates are gaining ground is that there is no deterent.
    One time when my ship was in the Persian Gulf along came a small boat so we broke out the fire hoses and litterelly tore the boat apart. There were 3 other small boats headed our way. The only time they turned around around was when our security detail showed up armed with 45’s and shotguns. O did I forget to tell the ship I was on was a NAVY warship. The pirates do not care until the rubber meets the road. DAMN THE TORPEDOS FULL SPEED AHEAD
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more like…“the bullet hits the bone”!!:wink:

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[QUOTE=Ordinaryseaman;24824]Welcome to gcaptain-

Hmm…

Let me see if I have this straight-

your company addresses the inadequacies of using high pressure water streams against pirates armed with automatic weapons/rpg’s- by selling expensive equipment- that … uhhh… uses high pressure water streams against pirates armed with automatic weapons and rpg’s?

Thanks for your comments. We also provide armed guards if client has such a requirement. However, IMO and other bodies strongly discourage the use of fire arms on ships. Therefore, the best way is to use non-lethal defensive measures. These machines are automatic and do not require crew to be stationed on deck to accommodate them. Also the time period of one complete sweep can be adjusted to as low as 2 seconds

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Gut feeling still says a .50 cal wins in a fight with a hose.

Ryan

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Well, at least its something! Arming all ships is never going to be the solution. So something like this is still a step in the right direction as it gets the seamen out of harms way.

Cheers,
Velu