Modern Day Pirates

When we hear the word pirate, we think of pirates such as Blackbeard, who terrorized the Caribbean Sea during the late 1600's. We also think of Johnny Depp, portraying the swashbuckling Jack Sparrow, in the hit movie Pirates of the Caribbean.

This is not the case any longer as modern day pirates are running rampant on the Somalian seas. No one is safe from these modern day pirates. Super tankers, luxury cruise liners, tug boats, yachts and even sailboats fall prey to these modern day pirates.

Modern day pirates are not all interested in the cargo aboard cargo ships, in many cases. This booty would take time to find a buyer for and the risk of being caught would be quite fool hardy. These modern day pirates are more interested in personal items, such as jewelry, electronic devices and cash. A luxury cruise liner for instance, may hold many treasures that a pirate would likely kill to obtain.

Bounty or treasures are not the only thing that a modern day pirate will hijack a vessel for. Modern day pirates will hijack a boat or any seafaring vessel, that they feel might be advantageous, tow it to a secure port and kidnap the occupants, in order to demand an incredibly high ransom for their safe return. Should the ransom not be met, they have no remorse in killing the hostages and selling the boat along with it's contents to a safe, secure buyer.

Unlike years of yore, when pirates armed their ships with cannons, today's modern day pirates arm themselves with automatic weapons, rocket launchers, and hand grenades. Modern day pirates also have modern surveillance equipment along with speed boats to overcome unsuspecting victims with relative ease.

There is a device in which you can protect your vessel against modern day pirates, it is called a LRAD, or long range acoustic device. This device, which was developed by the American Technology Corporation, emits an intensely loud, high frequency sound that could discourage modern day pirates from coming even remotely close to your vessel. At a moderately close range, this long range acoustic device can damage the eardrums of modern day pirates and cause them intense pain, thus discouraging the modern day pirates from approaching your vessel..

The Maersk Alabama, Captained by Richard Philips, was recently hijacked by Somalian modern day pirates. Richard Philips offered himself as a hostage to these modern day pirates in order to save his crew. The crew of the Maersk Alabama, fought back and regained possession of the vessel, but not before Philips was taken away in a life boat, as a hostage. A LRAD might have been very useful to these unfortunate victims of modern day pirates.

Captain Richard Phillips was rescued last Sunday, by Navy Seals, after being held captive by modern day pirates, as a result of his shipping vessel being the target of an attempted hijacking. His arrival home was delayed, due to the Navy Seals, having to interrupt yet another attack by modern day pirates, since Phillips safe return home, there have been four other modern day pirates hijackings.

Sources:
http://abcnews.go.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/