Company Magazine for the Odfjell Group - March 2005

Piracy
Armed robbery on the high seas
By Klaus Walderhaug and Frode Bjørklund
Seafarers have always been exposed to
the perils of the sea: hostile weather,
collisions and grounding, fire and noxious
fumes, flooding, sinking, capsizing,
loss of propulsion or steering and any
other hazards resulting from the
unique environment of the sea. The
list of dangers is long. The topic has
been a popular motive in paintings, a
thrilling background in film and literature,
and the inspiration to many a
song and tune. Dramatic incidents are
always thoroughly covered by the
press.
Modern technology and an increasingly
risk adverse society have made both
the marine venture and the sailors’
lives safer. However, another external
threat still remains which authorities
and the shipping community are
struggling to combat: Piracy.
Ancient piracy
Piracy has been an adverse side of life
at sea for thousands of years. Both the
old Egyptians back to the days of the
Pharaohs and the ancient Greeks tell of
piracy on the Mediterranean
trade routes, attacks mostly originating
from North Africa. The
Romans struggled with Vandal,
and later also Muslim, pirates, disturbing
the trade routes to Africa
and the East. The eastern part of
the Mediterranean was particularly
infested with pirates, operating
out of the coast of what today is
Turkey. Despite being an obstacle
to the sea trade, Rome was still
reluctant to crack down on the
pirates as these were also prime
suppliers of slaves to the Roman
Empire. The Romans actually had
fairly strict anti-piracy laws, opening
for prosecution of pirates
and imposing heavy fines for
those harbouring them, but these
were rarely enforced. Rome were
struggling with civil wars as well
as conflicts on many of its borders,
and was not able to free the
necessary resources to combat this
evil. To avoid being plundered
and terrorized, many port cities
around the Med started providing
services and facilities to the pirates or
paid tribute to them. The pirates grew
bolder, started raiding islands and cities,
taking prisoners for ransom. As a
young man even Julius Caesar were
captured by pirates. At a time the pirates,
operating more than 1,000 ships
and having captured or raided 400
cities, were so dominating that trade
throughout the Mediterra-nean virtually
halted. Finally, Rome had to act, and
in 67 BC Commander Pompey was
awarded the task of getting rid of
the pirates. With a force of 120,000 troops,
4,000 cavalry, 270 ships and sufficient
resources to fund his mission, he
managed to scare most of the pirates
into obedience and to defeat the rest.
Saturday March 12th 2005, a gang of
35 pirates armed with machine guns
and rocket launchers boarded the
Indonesian product tanker Tri Samudra
in the Malacca Strait, on its way to
Belawan, Indonesia with a full load of
oil cargo. The pirates took control of
the tanker and ordered it to sail
towards Dumai. Later they abandoned
the ship, kidnapping the master and
the chief engineer. The owner received
a ransom demand for a 2 billion rupiah,
approx. US$ 210,000.
17th century naval warfare.
The golden age of piracy
In the 16th century piracy was again
growing as a menace to the sea trade.
European colonial expansion in South
America, Africa and Asia resulted in
ships carrying gold, silver and other
valuable goods. Better, bigger and
faster ships were being built, allowing
the pirates the advantage of manoeuvring
equality or even superiority to
their preys. Competing interests and
ambitions of the colonial powers gave
room for ambitious and ruthless sailors
to find ways of legalizing even the
worst acts of piracy, as several countries
recruited privateers to act in the interest
of their respective crown. In this
way English privateers could, with
impunity, attack and rob Spanish ships,
whilst North African pirates were licensed
to rob English ships.
In the early 1500s, the so-called
Barbarian states in Northern Africa
became centres for pirates. The sultans
of Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco encouraged
piracy as an important source of
revenue, and during the 17th century
these pirates became a menace to the
European merchant navies. By 1650
more than 30,000 captives by pirates
were imprisoned in Algeria alone, and
many European sailors were sold as
slaves or, if coming from a family
of means, exchanged against a
ransom. In many countries there
were organised "ransom relief
funds", giving aid and loans to
families trying to bring back
their loved ones from imprisonment
in Northern Africa.
Several countries, among them
Denmark/ Norway and the
United States, were paying to
the Barbarian sultans for
immunity against piracy attacks.
A number of attacks were made
against the pirate nests, and
finally in 1830 the French managed
to end the North-African
piracy.
Perhaps the best known of the
pirates, and the ones mostly
pictured in books and by the
movie industry, are the buccaneers
operating in the Caribbean
Sea during the 16th and 17th
century. The term buccaneer
comes from the French 'boucan',
a grill for smoking dried meat,
referring to the fare on board the ships.
The buccaneers were English, Dutch
and French seafaring adventurers who
preyed mainly on Spanish ships going
to and from the Spanish American
16 ODFJELL Quarterly March 2005