Boaty McBoatface, why not?

I’m into research and I like boats, both serious boats  for research and boats for recreational use even if they sometimes aren’t serious. I don’t like boats with stuck up names!

English is not my native language and most names sounds more promising if they are originate from another language, but I know there are many names much worse than Boaty McBoatface. I also hope to think that the ship and it's tasks are bigger than the name of the ship, any name.

I wish Draken Harald Hårfagre fair winds!

Updated April 26 2016:

The world´s largest viking ship Draken Harald Hårfagre has now left Haugesund, Norway and sails towards Canada and USA via Iceland, Greenland. They will cross the North Atlantic Ocean, to explore the world as the Vikings did a thousand years ago. On their webpage (see link above) you can follow the ship's progress.

The 33-person strong crew will most likely have a exciting (and challenging) voyage with the harsh conditions upon them all the time and with only a tent as protection when sleeping. I'm not a history buff, but this project I like!

Bon voyage and fair winds!

Maritime security: information has gone missing?

I’ve followed maritime security with a systematic approach since 2010. In my research, and when discussing maritime security measures with ship operators, reliable and systematic descriptions of incidents are important. Without such information also I’m left with nothing but guesswork. I’ve over the years come across information or descriptions of incidents that doesn’t appear in the statistics or correspond with the general beliefs.

Case 1. The first discrepancy is that one about the effectiveness of armed guards on ships which is by many claimed to be 100% effective off Somalia. I’ve heard many say “a ship with armed guards have never been successfully attacked by pirates (off Somalia)”. This is off course not a true statement:

Firstly: at sea (and in many other situations) nothing is 100% except the fact that you don’t have all the information.

Secondly: I’ve heard a couple of very reliable accounts about incidents off Somalia from different years, situations and ships describing successful boarding’s on ships with armed guards. A typical end to such an incident is that the armed guards throw their weapons over board when they realize they are beaten and the company providing the guards takes responsibility over (not) reporting the incident.

Thirdly: The people typically making claims about armed guards being the only 100% effective measure (ship operator executives) should be smart enough to know that the claim isn’t true.

Fourth: In other areas, such as off Nigeria, even the official effectiveness of armed guards is far from 100%.

I don’t know the correct figure for the effectiveness of armed guards off Somalia (it is however high) and I’ve not tried to investigate it either. My point is that the case of armed guards is an example of how poorly the truth sometimes is treated when reporting maritime security incidents.

Case 2. For a coming publication I searched for records of incidents off West Africa 2012 and 2013 that wasn’t included in the official ICC International Maritime Bureau (IMB [https://icc-ccs.org/]) statistics. I found some records illustrating that incidents without consequences, i.e., such as a suspicious approach without boarding, not always was reported. This is not surprising, for many seafarers this as seen as a normal, but unpleasant, day in that area. I.e., nothing to report.

More surprising was the high profile incidents I found where the paper trail was disappearing fast. With high profile I here mean European or North American ship operators in combination with severe consequences such as kidnapping. For a couple of such incidents (I found four) no records at all were included in the IMB incidents description even though there were newspaper articles describing at least some aspects of the incidents.

I understand that reporting such incidents isn’t your first priority or sometimes not even possible during an attack. But it should be in the industry’s interest that at least some basic aspects such as date, time, position, and consequence in general terms are reported in the days or weeks after. This to make sure that the situation at sea can be captured, communicated and reacted on as correctly as possible. Especially given the sea blindness shore based decision-makers seem have.

It takes (at least) two to tango

I, as many else, have noticed the US information about the interactions between the USS Donald Cook and two Russian SU-24 airplanes on internarial water in the Baltic Sea. According to the New YorkTimes who bases their information on White House sources the planes “violated professional military norms over the Baltic Sea when one of its planes flew ‘dangerously close’ to an American ship and a Polish aircraft”.

Based on the video footage it’s clear that the basic information is true, but how to define “professional military norms” and “dangerously close” is off course debatable and is as much up to culture as anything. I’m convinced that the definition of these concepts differ between US and Russia and most probably also within US such as between an US navy pilot and a politician in the White House.

The Baltic Sea a more quite day. Photo © Hans Liwång.

The flight has also by Congressman Adam Kinzinger been described as a practice attack. Based on my knowledge it does not look like an attack, it looks like a message being communicated as well as a photo opportunity. The message being communicated by the Russian planes to me looks very much the same as the message most military forces is communicating in general and more specifically by USS Donald Cook by being in the Baltic Sea.

There is a DANGEROUS dance being performed in the Baltic Sea with more than two dancers.