dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted November 28, 2012 Report Share Posted November 28, 2012 Piracy on the high seas has never gone away, sailng ships and cannons have been replaced with fast powerboats and machine guns but the principle is still the same, ships are still being hijacked on a regular basis. Often the country where the pirates are based deny all knowledge of the problem and make a proifit from their gains...... Here we have such a situation. One of Shells Supertankers has been hijacked in the far east. An official military responce is out of the question. It would be an act of war so not appropriate.However a team of mercenaries and a civil crew can acheive a lot of things!! reconaisence photos show the ship tied up near a small village just inland from the sea. The owners decide to retaliate as this is the third time it's happened and the local government deny any involvement, the fact that the ships cargo has been discharged shows that some serious equipment has been used, no pirates could do that! A solution is found. In an old ship yard an ex-royal navy aircraft carrier is lying silent. Long since taken out of use she still has all the basic sytems that are needed. The owners lease the ship and with a civilian crew aboard, the old carrier begins one one more mission. A few weeks later and it's let slip that a valuable cargo ship will be passing near to the pirates base. It's hoped they will be tempted to get together for an attack. In the meantime the old carrier takes up position off the coast. In the early morning light an MD500E is brought on deck. She has been armed with two mini-guns from a redundant AH1 Cobra. Perfect for this job departing the carrier flying low and fast towards a small airfield where agents are waiting for the recce team. touching down quickly to do the drop off a few hours later and the recce team report that the ship is still where she was reported, and that the pirates are assembling for another attack ! Perfect ! the recce team are picked up. and then flies fast along the coast to a position near the base dropping into a clearing, the recce team disembark, this time carrying weapons the pilot waits until the assault team are in positon, the target confirmed and then.. It's a massacre, the pirates are all massed in fast canoes preparing to go downstream, At point blank range the choppers guns make mincemeat of the lot of them! she then flies back down to the village and takes out anyone left behind, in the meantime a second unarmed aircraft has launched from the carrier Low down and fast to the fight as the gunship picks up the original assault team the next one lands on the riverbank discharging another team to search for the ships crew the gunship returns to the carrier the ships crew are unharmed and within an hour the giant tanker is pulling away from the pirates village With the ship now on her way the other helo returns to the carrier leaving the assualt team on the ship in case of further trouble a short time later and the tanker has reached the estuary, she turns out to sea heading towards the carrier, from the bridge the carrier looks tiny just to stbd side of the ship finally the tanker runs alongside the old carrier. the assault team are transferred back to their ship and the carriers medical staff check out the tanker crew. they seem to be in good shape and soon the ships turn towards home. the carrier pulls ahead with the tanker following. The final tally, an entire pirate group of around 70 members and their village wiped out. The country cannot say a word as, according to them, they dont have a pirate problem! They certainly dont now! And as for the old carrier. She's back in the yard, apparently forgotten!...........or is she! Thanks for viewing. Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted November 28, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 28, 2012 Note; I've based the story on several different events that actually happened. When I was working on the tankers for BP we were in Lagos on one occasion when there was some sort of uprising. Our ship was to all intents seized as we were forbidden to leave unde fear of death! It was some sort of anti-western thing. Well BP were having none of it and the government were informed. A week later, in the early hours of the morning 2 Royal Navy RIBs came up the River and basically got us out , ! We cut our mooring lines and hauled ourselves out. The Nigerians took exeption to this and tried to stop us but the RN guys made it quite clear that if we were stopped then they would take action! When we got clear there was a Royal Navy Destroyer sitting in the bay! Another occasion again in Lagos but this time in the anchorage rather than the main port. It was late evening and whilst on bridge watch we spotted a load of canoes heading out toward a lone Russian ship that was anchored further out. We radiod them and told them to expect company. A while later the Russian pulled up her anchor and went out to sea. She came back a few hours later, No pirates aboard and no canoes in tow! We did not ask what had happened to them! Piracy in the Lagos area is rife and we hated going there, The Nigerian government did nothing about it so most ships took their own precautions. Ours were usually great lumps of old iron and steel and loads of water cannons. When the pirates came off worse the Nigerian government never said a word! As far as I know, helicopter gunships have never been used to fight pirates........yet! Link to post Share on other sites
britfrog 180 Posted November 28, 2012 Report Share Posted November 28, 2012 interesting that you should recount this story as I have a friend who lives near bury st edmunds who recounts much the same stories, they were also on a tanker or support vessel, small world. i used to live near Lagos back in the early 50's and can tell you a tale or two of life there then, my Dad was a pilot so we were posted there Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted November 28, 2012 Report Share Posted November 28, 2012 I read a story that, off Somalia, about a year or two ago, a Russian naval vessel captured a pirate boat. After holding them for some period of time they released them, citing the fact that prosecution is just very difficult - most countries want nothing to do with it or their laws don't address the matter, etc. So, they released them but for some reason the pirates never made it back to the mainland. My guess is that they couldn't bail fast enough to stay ahead of the holes in the boats, but it could have been a thousand things - or a thousand holes. Score one for the Russians. John Link to post Share on other sites
hurricanemk1c 195 Posted November 28, 2012 Report Share Posted November 28, 2012 Nice post Alan - great shots, although that tanker looks a little high in the water! Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted November 28, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 28, 2012 Nice post Alan - great shots, although that tanker looks a little high in the water! She would be Kieran, once the cargo has been discharged the ship will rise up. some of BPs used to have over 90ft of freeboard (the distance between the deck and sea level, when loaded this could be as low as 4 ft!)when in this condition. What generally happens is that once the cargo has been discharged the ship would take on water ballast in the bottom of the cargo tanks to give the ship some basic stability. Cargo tanks are generally arranged in 3 rows, Port, Starboard and centre and then sub divided into many smaller lateral divisions, On most ships the practice is that once the ship leaves coastal waters then Tank Cleaning would begin. Special pumps are switched on that blast high pressure water around the tanks scouring them clean, this waste is pumped over sides if at sea or moved to one of the coffer dam tanks at the the fore or after end of the cargotank area, usually the aft tank as this sits between the cargo tanks and the engine and pumprooms, at the join where the accomodation block starts on the hull. It is during this operation that the ship is at her most unstable as there are large bodies of fluid moving around the ship. It is up to the first officer and chief engineer to get the balancing act right. Generally the outer tanks are cleaned first with ballast in the centre tanks. Now the ship is finely balanced, get it wrong and she will capsize. Once the side tanks are clear, air is pumped in and the tanks emptied of all fluids. Then the centre tanks are cleaned in exactly the same way. Now the ship is a lot more stable with large air filled tanks on either side. Once the centre tanks are cleaned and the waste drained away, plain seawater is pumped into the tanks so as to keep the ship stable(Like the keel on a yacht). Ballast is generally lighter at the fore end and heavier at the stern to give her a slight stern low attitude. This gives the ship good sea keeping abilities as it keeps the bow section higher out of the waves and at the same time pushes the rudder and propeller deeper.(making them more effective) another factor the engineers have to consider on ships like this is the bending strain. All ships flex in heavy seas, it can be quite unnerving for the uninitiated to se the bow 1/4 mile away moving up and down in the waves. Again the amount of flex is controlled by the way the tanks are loaded and ballasted. It is a very very complex procedure and unlike now, in the 1970s and 80s we only had analogue strain guages to work with, computers were still in their infancy and although we had them they were huge! I'll give you an example of some of our tech. If you look at a lot of ships from that age you would see a large dome about 4 ft across on the top of the bridge or the in that general area ,but always high up.. That is our Sat Nav Reciever! They were fun times on those ships and I wouldnt have changed things for the world. I was gutted when I got made redundant. Earning £300 a week in the late 70s was an absolute fortune! I still miss it to this day. Link to post Share on other sites
hurricanemk1c 195 Posted November 28, 2012 Report Share Posted November 28, 2012 Interesting info there Alan - I just thought that the tanker was full - but thanks anyway! Link to post Share on other sites
britfrog 180 Posted November 29, 2012 Report Share Posted November 29, 2012 sorry double post Link to post Share on other sites
britfrog 180 Posted November 29, 2012 Report Share Posted November 29, 2012 back in the late 60's when living in the bahamas, we had a greek registered tanker nearly break its back in heavy seas whilst running in ballast from the US it hove to off the bar at nassau and a friend of mine's company was enlisted to try to weld it up , at the time I had been learning about welding so we went out to this huge ship, which had a crack nearly around the whole of the hull. we started to weld and brace it together at about 4 pm and once we had secured the top end the crew slowly raised the ship out of the water so that we could keep welding above the waterline. we were using welding rods over an inch in diameter and welding cross braces every couple of feet. the heat was huge. i went home at about 4am but the rest kept at it till about 6pm the following day. it was amazing to watch this ship rising out of the water, then being tilted to one side so that the welders could get to the end of the fatigue tear. which would normally be way underwater. They did a good enough job because she was able to set sail for port everglades where she went into dry dock for more permanent repairs. Mind you we all had the most amazing arc eyes for several days afterwards most uncomfortable. Link to post Share on other sites
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