SuperMax Tanker attacked... Pirates Getting More "Sophisticated"-- likely source of sophistication is increased ransoms

The Somalia Report article at

http://www.somaliareport.com/index.php/post/1101
says there is a possibility that the pirates are using night vision equipment in their attack on the tanker Brilliante Virtuoso-- these -- the older generation ones, can be bought over the internet.

The attack did not end up in a capture of the ship as the pirates hoped-- but it sure achieved the effect of setting the tanker on fire and a possibility of an ecological diasaster, which was avoided

It is not that the tanker was attacked with RPGs that alarms shipowners most. It is the fact that armed security was not posted. Armed security backed up by night vision scopes who will fire warning shots when suspicious boats come into the 300-400 metre range. It is recommended that security team be backed up by an infra-red (IR) system to cover any and all blindspots. We recommend IR systems from Zeiss Optronics. These systems are all weather, can track a moving target and have a high degree of resolution.

The installation of hard and soft security measures could have saved the tanker mentioned here a lot of grief and insurance premiums.

again-- if any tanker owner or ship manager wants to avoid trouble to their shipfarers, call us
stormorochalie (at) gmail.com

We would be more than pleased to hear from you.




~~~


~~~~~~~~~~

UPDATE: Oil Tanker Fire Off Yemen Extinguished After Attack

By gCaptain Staff On July 7, 2011

• 
  inShare0
• Print This Email This

Image by Dmitrios
LONDON (Dow Jones)–A fire that broke out on an oil tanker after a pirate attack off the Yemeni coast has now been extinguished, an official at the company managing the ship said Wednesday.
Though a large-scale oil disaster appears to have been avoided, news of the fire on the 1 million barrels tanker will revive security fears on a shipping route that has suffered increasingly bold attacks from Somali pirates.
The fire “was extinguished,” said Andreas Louka, a legal adviser at Athens’ Central Mare Inc., the company managing the Brillante Virtuoso tanker.
Asked if the tanker, which was on its way from Ukraine to China, could still deliver its cargo, Louka said “they are going to assess” the damage first.
“The crew is safe, the vessel is safe. There is no pollution,” the official has previously said.

-By Benoit Faucon, Dow Jones Newswires