Pirates attack Russian tanker 30 miles off Gujarat coast?

Feb 19 The Indian security apparatus is believed to be on high alert after a Sovcomflot-owned tanker was attacked by pirates just 30 miles from the country’s coastline three days ago. Armed guards on a ship believed to be the Liberian flagged “NS Century”, a 105,800 DWT crude oil tanker, fired warning shots at three skiffs that approached the vessel at high speed, the International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy reporting centre said.


The tanker was about 30 miles off the Porbandar (Gujarat) coast when, according to the IMB, “Three skiffs were noticed at a distance of 6.3 nm ahead of a tanker underway. A suspected mother vessel without AIS signal was also noticed via radar around 17nm ahead. The skiffs increased speed and headed towards the tanker. One of the skiffs increased its speed to around 20knots.There were 6-8 persons in each skiff. Master commenced evasive manoeuvres, alerted all crewmembers. The skiffs closed to around three cables and the armed security team onboard fired warning shots. The skiffs stopped and were seen moving towards the mother vessel. Small arms were sighted in the skiffs but no ladders were observed”.

Apparently no shots were fired at the tanker; however, analysts believe that Somali pirates off a mother ship believed to be in the area were responsible for the attack. The fact that the attack was alarmingly close to the country’s sensitive Gujarat coastline almost next door to Pakistan will undoubtedly give the Indian authorities many sleepless nights. Equally worrisome is the fact that ships had been advised to use the corridor off Gujarat for safety ever since the recent spate of attacks in the northern Arabian Sea. With piracy having spread cancerously right across the Arabian Sea, the position of the attack (20º 53.2′ N, 069º 39.1′ E) will raise concerns in the industry that the Indian coastline is not safe anymore.

One legal expert says that, should the pirate attacks reach approximately twelve miles from the coast, “we will no longer be talking about piracy in the international law sense (as defined in Article 101 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea). Instead the offense would be ‘armed robbery against ships’ and a matter solely for the Indian legal system”.

Reports indicate that the Indian coast guard is investigating the incident, including the possibility that Indian fishermen strayed too close to the crude oil tanker and were mistakenly taken for pirates. However, if this was indeed a pirate attack as reported by the IMB, the time may have come when armed guards could be commonplace on ships in an area bounded by the Southern Red Sea, the Straits of Hormuz, Sri Lanka and the coast of South Africa till Durban, we think.

‘Fort Stikine’ gold found in hopper in Mumbai Port.‘

Ship exploded in Victoria dock sixty-seven years ago.

Two gold bars have been recovered from amidst three tonnes of garbage by port labourers in the city. Part of the cargo aboard the SS Fort Stikine, they are undoubtedly part of a consignment of gold that rained down on Mumbai on April 14, 1944 as the ship- also carrying explosives and munitions- caught fire and exploded in Victoria Docks almost seventy years ago, devastating the port and strewing metal pieces and gold in South Mumbai: part of a propeller landed in St Xavier’s School at Dhobi Talao almost three kilometers away.


Jaisu Shipping’s dredger Sulawesi II, working on the Offshore Container Terminal Project, had dropped their load of sand-silt into the port dumping ground; its workers were cleaning the hopper, according to a report in the Mumbai Mirror, when they noticed two shiny pieces of some metal stuck within. Amazed to discover that these were gold bars, they informed the dredger Master, who contacted the managers. Port officials and police were then informed. On closer examination and realising that the Stikine had sunk in the same location, the mystery became clear. "It has been confirmed that gold dates back to the time when SS Fort Stikine was destroyed in an explosion near Victoria dock," DCP (Port Zone), Quaisar Khalid said.

Presently kept at the Yellow Gate Police Station, the gold bars will be sent to the Mumbai Collector who will decide their ownership; similar gold bars found in the seventies have been returned to the British Government. This time, careful dredging of the area was carried out but no more gold has been found. Officials say that the two bars discovered could have very easily been lost in the silt; they were fortuitously stuck in the hopper.

Back in 1944, the gold on board the 7142 GRT Fort Stikine was valued at anything between one and two million Pounds. The ship was carrying cotton bales, oil, explosives and ammunition when a hold caught fire in the docks, possibly due to a cigarette smoked against rules and good sense. The ship was abandoned after attempts to put out the fire failed. She exploded a quarter of an hour later to devastating effect. A second explosion within half an hour added to the destruction: a two square mile area around the ship was set ablaze and official figure say that 740 people were killed and 1800 injured; the actual toll is said to be much higher. Twenty seven ships in Mumbai port were sunk. The resultant tidal wave from the second explosion is said to have lifted the 5000 tonne Jala Panda sixty feet in the air before it dropped on the dock. It rained gold bars, chunks of metal and pieces of debris for up to three kilometers around the port. Windows were shattered twelve miles away.

The fire raged for three days before it was brought under control. It took ten thousand men six months to clear the debris, believed to weigh between half a million and a million tonnes, and get the port working normally again.

The two gold bars found this month come from that cataclysmic provenance- a piece of maritime history largely unknown and forgotten. A city museum is the most appropriate place for them, I think.
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Seafarer wage agreement heading to the courts?

INSA asks for tribunal to settle matter

Media reports suggest that the negotiations on the revision of Indian mariner wages are deadlocked because officials within the National Union of Seafarers of India (NUSI) and the Forward Seamen's Union of India (FSUI) cannot come to an understanding as to who should represent seafarers. Industry insiders remember that the last wage agreement was only possible after Court intervention; the industry seems to be heading down an identical road this time around as well. “The one-upmanship by the unions has created an environment which is not conducive for wage negotiations," a representative of the ship owners told the Economic Times newspaper.

NUSI has meanwhile alleged, according to media reports, that shipowners are deliberately delaying a wage agreement for obvious reasons.

Analysts say that the two unions are at loggerheads because NUSI has a constitutional presence in the National Maritime Board (NMB), and claims to have the right to represent Indian mariners as a result of this provision. FSUI, however, strongly claims that no negotiations can take place without its direct involvement. To add to the confusion, FSUI has decided to go on a one day token strike on February 14 to protest the delay in the talks.

The negotiation team has met thrice with the Indian National Shipowners’ Association (INSA) under the aegis of the National Maritime Board, according to newspaper reports. However, there has been no traction on the issue of seafarer wages. In fact, the Ecotimes reports that INSA has recently written to the Ministry of Shipping asking that a tribunal be set up to resolve the matter. It is believed that both the NUSI and FSUI had initially agreed to the INSA adjudication proposal at a recent meeting, but they are now stonewalling on the proposal. The newspaper quotes an unnamed insider commenting on the meeting, “Not a single word on seafarers' wages was spoken at these meetings. The two representative unions could not see eye to eye and this has led to an impasse”.

FSUI is believed to have proposed to INSA that it is ready to accept an agreement provided that it is signed by representatives of both the unions. Furthermore, it (FSUI) demands that at the next wage agreement (2012-14), the Secretary of the seafarers side should be a FUSI member; this is likely to be a sticking point with NSUI, as the present Secretary comes from that union. FSUI obviously wants regular representation at these agreements and within negotiating teams, since it has mooted a rotation system for the Seafarer Secretary position, which it says should be held alternately by an official from NUSI or FSUI.

The impasse is likely to continue, industry watchers say, pointing out that the precedent set in the past will mean that any future negotiations will be subject to the same tensions. It is very likely, many say, that the present fracas will be settled by a tribunal. For the future, though, the matter of seafarer representation needs to be resolved once and for all so that the system is not victim to inordinate delays.
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Beluga Nomination hijack: Owners express frustration with coalition navies

Citadel breached by pirates

The pirate seizure last week of the multi- purpose heavy-lift project carrier ‘Beluga Nomination’ soon after the Danish weapons ship ‘Leopard’ was taken two weeks ago will undoubtedly make the industry worry that its ‘citadel’ strategy is no longer working. The Leopard was not taken to Somalia, but its crew of six were kidnapped from the citadel and taken off the vessel; the Beluga Nomination was hijacked after the pirates breached its citadel apparently two and a half days after the crew locked themselves in. The ship was en route from Malta to Masan in South Korea when it was hijacked.

The German owners of the Beluga Nomination have expressed frustration that no military help reached ship’s crew for so long after a distress call had been sent to EUNAVFOR. The crew of 12 consists of Polish, Filipino, Russian and Ukrainian nationals. "We are somewhat irritated," Beluga head Niels Stolberg said. "Why, within 2 1/2 days during which the crew had hidden from the pirates in the citadel, could no external help be offered? Had no serviceable units been at disposal?"

The Beluga Nomination was attacked by a skiff that fired on the vessel on January 22 with small arms fire. According to EU NAVFOR, the 9775 Dwt Antigua and Barbuda registered Nomination was 390 miles north of the Seychelles at the time, though other reports, including from the owners, suggest that she may have been up to 800 miles off the islands at the time. The crew had locked themselves into a citadel when the pirates boarded; EU NAVFOR stressed later that the use of a citadel by crewmembers does not guarantee a military response from them. In its defence, EU NAVFOR also says that the closest warship to the Nomination was a thousand nautical miles away waiting to escort a World Food Programme (WFP) vessel delivering vital humanitarian aid to Somalia, which is EUNAVFOR’s primary task. The Seychelles coast guard, although closer, could not assist due to bad weather, it says. In any case, there was four days of uncertainty for the Bremen based owners before it was confirmed, by a plane flying overhead, that the Nomination had been taken and was en route for Somalia.

Beluga says that it is spending millions of Euros annually in defensive security equipment, rising insurance costs and crew anti piracy training, while in Germany there is just theoretical discussion about securing German vessels against the rising number of pirate attacks. Analysts say that the strongly worded statement from Beluga shipping underlines the frustration of owners as they operate in an ever-widening area of risk in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea. The fact that the EU NAVFOR warship was waiting for the WFP vessel meant that she could have proceeded at full speed to the Nomination’s rescue, they point out. It seems that it took two and a half days before the pirates could breach the citadel on board; the warship could well have been close enough to launch a helicopter and rescue the crew before the citadel was breached.

South Korean commandos storm hijacked ship, free crew.

Captain shot in stomach by pirates.


South Korean commandos have stormed the chemical tanker ‘Samho Jewelry’' and freed all the crew, President Lee Myung-bak has announced. "Our soldiers rescued all of twenty-one crew aboard Samho Jewelry, including eight Koreans, who were hijacked by Somalia pirates," President Lee told reporters. The South Korean navy says that five pirates were captured and eight killed in the dawn rescue raid. Reports say that all the crew were rescued alive, although the South Korean captain of the ship suffered a non-critical gunshot wound to his stomach during the attack. Three Korean commandoes were slightly injured in the raid; other pirates are reported missing, though their bodies have not been found, Korean authorities added.


The rescue took place about 800 miles off the coast of Somalia. The loaded 11,500 tonne Samho Jewelry was taken last weekend from the Arabian Sea en route to Sri Lanka from the United Arab Emirates with a crew of eight Koreans, eleven Burmese and two Indonesians. She was then tracked sailing towards Somalia. There were questions at the time whether South Korean ships were being especially targeted by pirates, given that the Samho Dream- with the same owners- had been released last November after the biggest ransom on record, some 9.5 million dollars, was dropped aboard the vessel.

In any event, Seoul ordered the Choi Young destroyer to be diverted from the Gulf of Aden to shadow the Jewelry after she was taken last Saturday, and President Lee ordered "all possible measures" to save the crew. South Korea is part of a multinational anti-piracy patrol in the region. Commandos chased the hijacked ship for days, and started a rescue mission before dawn today; the raid went on for five hours.

Media reports say that pirates were leaving to hijack another vessel in the vicinity when the naval destroyer approached her. Col Lee Bung-woo of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters, "Three of our soldiers suffered light scratches on their bodies as they were fired upon by pirates. Our Lynx helicopter immediately returned fire and several pirates fell into the waters”. He confirmed that pirates had shot the captain of the ship in the stomach, but his condition was not life threatening.

South Korean President Lee said on television, "We will not tolerate any behaviour that threatens the lives and safety of our people in the future."

The London-based International Maritime Bureau says that there have already been 22 incidents reported off the coast of Somalia this year, including four hijackings.

Thirty-one vessels are being held presently by pirates in Somalia. One hopes that there are no South Koreans aboard any of them.