Can someone explain to me how ships are getting hijacked by Somali pirates?

Michelle's $550 Sneakers!!

Obama says these pirates are just misunderstood and we must have a town hall meeting, a stern one. Forget the UN, our last best hope for peace, go to the top - Jay Leno at 11:30 pm. Turn this over to the brutal tough guy Rahm Emanuel, if he can handle Republicans, pirates should be no problem. A parachute rescue mission using ACORN commandos, fresh from stunning victories over AIG execs and their wives and children, might be considered. And donâ€™t forget David Axelrod, a guy who knows how to follow the path the media has laid down for him. Above all Mr Obama, the ultimate weapon, your teleprompter, show no mercy ! And remember to keep turning your head from side to side, that physical punctuation mark that suggests gravity. And donâ€™t poo your pants, it ainâ€™t all taking over the economy. o_O

Sandra M

The ship that was hijacked was not armed and was carrying medicine and food. They can't just shoot them when they do not have weapons. There are maritime laws regarding the arming of ships.

Pfo

As has been said before, the vessels aren't armed and their is a concern with arming them due to maritime law.

I know it sounds hard to believe, but small speed boats are incredibly effective against larger ships.

Mercer Devil

Trade ships usually don't have cannons, and the pirates are typically better armed than the crew.

De Oppresso Liber

they know what vessels to go after...most of the vessels they invade are not armed which makes them vulnerable to pirates.

ff1054

These are civilian ships and they are unarmed.
The pirates have automatic weapons and RPGs.

bethanne

Commercial ships are HUGE, and since it takes about 20-25 people to run it, rather 'thinly populated'. These pirates are pros; they show up in small outboard-motored boats which may not show up on radar, and you would hardly hear the sound of the smaller boat's motor over the constant drone and rumble of a large ship.

Agian, even if you can see the small boats, if you have a small crew, these guys would need to run back and forth over a large, perhaps over-filled deck, and even then, if you have about 10 people doing so, it would still be hard to keep track of all sides of the ship.

Then you would have to hope that you can see where the pirates are rapelling (sp) onto the ship, and hope you can cut the lines, or that the small pirate boat is not equipped with a small portable cannon launcher that can, and will, penetrate a single-hulled ship.

The ocean is a giant bit of water, and even if the closest ship is 100 miles away, it will still take time to reach a ship in distress. These large ships are slow movers, and a small boat can easily badger a larger one, with the perverse knowledge that if the larger ship overruns the smaller, the larger ship is Mean.

AND THEN, the crews are mostly always unarmed, even though American officers are required to take small arms training. Hard to face against a small band of desperate professional ex-soldiers armed with automatic weapons and no reason not to use them.

The crews on board the commercial ships are mostly career merchant marines (seamen); very few are active military and therefore not trained to deal with issues like this. I WISH the ships would have constant security crews attached to them. But oddly enough, while piracy has increased as per the media, considering the large number of ships that are out to sea at any given time number in the thousands, and unfortunately for the ones that get hijacked, the percentage is still too low for shipping companies to warrant crewing them with full-time security.

And considering that most shipping companies tend to be multi-national conglomerates with multi-citizen crews, having any one country be responsible for the ships' safety is hard to deal with = this is in response to those that blame Obama for the hijacking. The ship is crewed by Americans, but the company is an American-based subsidiary of a Danish company.

As the wife of a merchant seaman, pirates are the second-worst fear that I deal with every time he heads out to work, his boat sinking being the first.

Perro De Lava

Obviously you have never been on a large ship out in the ocean.

At night you can not see or hear who is coming at you. These are civilian ships with civilian crew. They do not stand guard with weapons like the military does.

It is very easy to hijack civilian ships in areas such as off the Somali coast.

Civilians follow the laws of the world, pirates do not.

MUSCLES

It's a big ocean

SALLY P

In the open water the small boats have a low profile. Also despite of the ships being large, their crew is between 15 to 20. Your also being boarded by men arm with automatic weapon. Pirates try to attack at night Hey I ask the same question, A friend in the Navy explain to me how it can be done. But you notice they don't try it on a war ship!

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