The Pirate Attack: More Details From The Inside

We told you last night about the exclusive inside report from our sister paper the Village Voice on how the crew reacted to the attack by Somali pirates.

After the jump, the full text of the e-mail:

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Everyone on here is okay. We’re on our way to Mombasa with Navy
protection on board.Captain Phillips is still hostage in the lifeboat
with the 4 pirates.I hear they’re flying out reliefs for everyone, but
I’m not sure what all’s going to happen once we get to Mombasa.
Supposedly the FBI is coming out to investigate the crime.Maybe we’ll
be on the next CSI Somalia.

I wanted to let you know some of the lessons we learned so you guys can
better prepare yourselves for something similar. The only guys actually
captured by the pirates were on the bridge: Capt, 3/M, and 2 AB’s.

I don’t really know why they stayed on the bridge until the pirates got
up there. Then they had keys to everything and were able to unlock
everyone’s rooms. The pirates got up to the bridge very quickly once
they were onboard. We had a locked cage door over the ladder well from
main deck, but it only took a second for them to shoot it off.They then
got to the bridge up the outside ladders. By that time we had taken
control of the engine and steering down below. Mike [the chief
engineer] stayed in the ECR and the C/M was out on deck tracking the
pirates’ movement. We kept swinging the rudder side to side.The
pirates’ boat capsized, though I’m not sure exactly when or what caused
it.After about 20 minutes the engine was killed, I don’t know by whom.
At that point I shut off the air bottles and Mike killed power. He was
also able to get outside and trip the fuel shutoff for the EDG
[emergency generator].

I think this was critical.The pirates were very reluctant to go into
the dark.We will be looking at a way to shut off the EDG from the ECR
in the future. All the crew had been mustered and secured in the
steering gear. Our pirates didn’t have any grenades, so they would have
never been able to break in there. The previous day we had welded a
padeye on the inside of the hatch to the fantail so it was secured from
the inside. The only problem with the steering gear was the heat and
the shortage of water. In the future we will store food and water in
various spots for emergency usage.

I think we will also run a fresh water line into the steering gear. We
were able to make a run from the steering gear to the E/R water
fountain and fill up some empty oil sample bottles we had back there.
The C/M was also able to get some fruit and sodas from the galley and
drop them down the line standpipe. The pirates sent the 3/M unescorted
to go look for crewmembers, so he was able to get away. One of the
pirates then went with an AB down to the E/R to look for people.Mike
was able to jump him in the dark and we took him prisoner in the
steering gear. No one else came down into the E/R. As the day went on
the pirates became desperate to get out of there.There boat was sunk,
and they couldn’t get our ship moving.

The Captain talked them into taking the MOB boat. The three remaining
pirates went down in the MOB boat with Phillips. We were then able to
negotiate with them over the radio. We dropped some food, water and
diesel to them. We started getting the plant back on line.
Unfortunately, the MOB boat wouldn’t start. A couple of guys got in the
lifeboat and dropped it. They motored over and traded the lifeboat for
the MOB boat.We were supposed to exchange their guy for the Captain,
but they ended up keeping him.They motored off in the lifeboat. They
had no way of getting back aboard, so we followed them. The Navy showed
up a
few hours later. We stayed close by for some time, but then the Navy
asked us to head out. I heard that several other pirate vessels were
heading our way and the Navy wanted us out of the way. That’s about it.

I’ll give you all the details some other time.

Just to reiterate the most important points: Have a well fortified location with food and water supply.

Kill all the lights.

Leave the alarms going, the noise helped cover our movements through
the house. Flashlights and radios are very handy, as well as the
sound-powered phone. Anyway, it was a pretty stressful situation.I have
to say I am impressed with how the entire crew responded. We didn’t
have anybody who wanted to give up. I’m pretty confident that Phillips
will end up ok.They have to know that if they kill him they’ll be done.
I assume the company will be forced into taking some kind of action to
assure our security from now on.

end