The dangerous Somali pirates plaguing international waters with their dastardly acts of piracy almost scored a big one, when they tried to intercept a cruise ship passing through the Gulf of Aden.

The cruise company, Oceania Cruises, put out a press statement which says that “On November 30, 2008, at approximately 0928 local time, 0528 GMT, M/S NAUTICA was transiting through the Gulf of Aden within the prescribed Maritime Safety Protection Area which is patrolled by international anti-piracy task forces. As the vessel sailed past several groups of non-hostile fishing vessels, two small skiffs were sighted by the Officer on Duty and deemed potentially hostile. The skiffs, approaching from a range of approximately 1000 meters, attempted to intercept the vessel’s course.

Captain Jurica Brajcic and his officers immediately began evasive maneuvers and took all prescribed precautions. NAUTICA was immediately brought to flank speed and was able to out run the two skiffs. One of the skiffs did manage to close the range to approximately 300 yards and fired eight rifle shots in the direction of the vessel before trailing off. No one aboard NAUTICA was harmed and no damage was sustained.”

The MS Nautica is a 30,000 ton, 11 deck ship which is on a 32 night Rome to Singapore cruise with 684 passengers and 400 crew members. There are 310 Americans aboard the Nautica, along with 212 Canadians, 47 Australians, 29 UK residents and the rest from nearly a dozen countries across the world. The cruise is continuing on schedule. Photo by 663highland from Wikimedia Commons under GNU Free Documentation License.

And since we’re talking about dastardly blokes, there’s a big debate on-going about security at elite hotels in the wake of the bombing of Islamabad’s Marriott and now the Mumbai attacks, where two luxury hotels full of international visitors, the Taj and the Oberoi, were taken hostage by terrorists.

Article in the New York Times analyzes what hotels can do to minimize such risks and prevent hostage situations, while ensuring that guests and tourists don’t get turned off by all the extra security. The police and first-response agencies should be working with the hotel industry to devise crisis action plans that would include computer programs detailing all internal and external aspects of hotel building structure, said Michael Coldrick, a London-based security professional and a former explosives specialist with Scotland Yard.

For example, a prerecorded DVD walk-through of a hotel could be used to brief special forces assault teams to make sure that they know what to expect. Hotels may also ask staff to keep a closer eye on customers. At some point, Mr. Coldrick said, “We might see cleaning ladies with explosives detectors.”

A cleaning lady with explosives detectors? Now that I’d like to see. I think its time for the New York hotels to start hiring former navy seals as cleaning staff.

Posted on December 1st, 2008 by Thomas
Filed under: News