|
|
|
|
|||||
|
||||||
Subject: [worldcruising] Re: Routes to UK - Piracy
From: Sigge Johansson (siggej@XXX.XXX)
Date: Wed Jan 10 2001 - 14:39:18 EST
Sailors!
There are many "true stories" and rumours about marine criminality. Many only just fantasies, but also many very terrible realities from the real cold world.
As a contrast to the not veryfied and questionable facts on the site "maritimesecurity", there are in fact two professional ones available on the web.
Visit http://www.iccwbo.org/ccs/imb_piracy/weekly_piracy_report.asp and http://www.imo.org/imo/circs/msc/piracy/list.htm
All facts imaginable are presented here. Name of the ships that were attacked, exact nautical position where it took place, and so on. Excellent statistic from today and many years back can be downloaded.
After having gone through some of the facts (Yes, these two sites tells what really happens out there, and are certainly no cracked/hacked micky-mouse pages!) on these sites, You'll find it a little bit hard to roll around on the floor for laughing, like Jim Manzari are able to. Not all stories can be so easily waved away. Piracy really do exist! The facts are terrible. But most of it concerns the international professional ship trading.
Marine criminality/piracy are happening more or less every day. In some parts of the world very often and frequently, in some other more seldom, in other not at all. What is so scary is that this statistic tells mostly about violence against very big and strongly manned ships. When the size of ships and crew obviously not scares these criminals away, how afraid can these men be of molesting a little well equipped and expensive pleasure yacht?
The reason that attacks against smaller vessels are so little represented in the statistic can be found in the fact that harbour police, custom officials, diplomats, military and government representatives in certain countries are severely corrupted. And it definitely has a very bad impact on the tourism industry in the countries in question - No one want to see their nations name in combination with this kind of news. That could be one logical explanation that there are so few reports regarding attacked and/or lost cruising vessels in the statistics. Personally I'm sure of it.
My information here is not meant to scare everybody of the idea to sail around the world and mingle together with all beautiful and wonderful beings all over the world. I only want You to be careful out there - as they say in the "Hill Street Blues" - and have this cruel reality in Your mind. All the time. And every where. Because there are some very bad people out there - who want our stile of living, but without studying and working for it. And for that reason there are several places on the globe that absolutely should be avoided. And some places where one should be at least 3-4-5 sailboats - never ever alone.
But by using common sense and listen to the news or reading papers and being updated, the most of us will have a very good maritime time. The lovely times/years when anyone could visit any far away spot and always being sure of a warm welcome, those times are unfortunately gone for ever. One can only read about them.
Wishing warm winds
Sigge Johansson
----- Original Message -----
From: Jim Manzari <manzari@XXX.XXX>
To: <worldcruising@XXX.XXX>
Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2001 8:01 PM
Subject: Re: [worldcruising] Re: Routes to UK
> > I would suggest a good point of reference would be to look up the
> > following URL as regard maritime piracy:
> >
> > http://www.maritimesecurity.com
>
> It's certainly one of the funniest web-sites around. I was already rolling
> on the floor after reading the first line on the first page...
>
> "Welcome to the one and only open-source website dedicated to maritime
> security."
>
> "Open-source", what does that mean in the context of piracy? Free program
> source code to the crime, perhaps?
>
> And all that really really heavy crime reported by all those "unidentified"
> ships around the world.
>
> This one, among many similar reports, made me laugh...
>
> "Guyana: an unidentified bulk carrier was boarded and robbed 12 Sep at 0315
> local time while at Everton wharf, New Amsterdam, Guyana. Five persons
> armed with guns and knives broke into the paint locker and stole ship?s
> stores before escaping in a boat. All attempts to contact police failed.
>
> Wow, someone stole paint from the paint locker, what a dastardly crime!
>
> And we're told about "several young men" just sitting around 200 miles at
> sea in the North Atlantic off Madeira waiting for the unfortunate Frenchman
> to pass. Whoever wrote this one was smoking the hemp halyards...
>
> "Eastern Atlantic (Madeira): A French yachtsman reported 10 Sep that he
> had been boarded 1 Sep about 200 miles north of Funchal while sailing
> alone from the Brittany Coast to Madeira. According to the report
> several young men boarded the yacht (L?objectif Lune) during the night
> and then again the following night...."
>
> There are many more laughable reports like this one, all written in that
> Police Gazette prose that we loved when we were kids. The Shadow knows...
>
> Wasn't this the web-site that a few years ago had the scheme of
> "registering" yotties (for a fee, of course) so there would be a central
> point of contract for the US Coast Guard when it came time to rescue?
> Unfortunately my eyes kept rolling back in my head as I read the latest
> version of this web-site, so I must have missed this pitch. Or has the
> Coast Guard insisted that they have nothing to do with this operation?
>
> Can't help wondering if this guy's mother knows he's playing with her
> computer again.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jim Manzari
=====================================
to unsubscribe email to: worldcruising-unsubscribe@onelist.com
|