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Sonic solution may not be a sound investment
Tuesday 2 December 2008

IT WAS touted as the smart and relatively inexpensive way to provide merchant vessels with security from pirate attack. Instead of hiring armed guards to accompany ships through the Gulf of Aden, Poole-based company Anti-Piracy Maritime Security Solutions offered shipowners what seemed a safer choice.
APMSS teams made a selling point out of offering former services personnel equipped not with guns, but with a range of non-lethal equipment instead, including such high-tech gizmos such as thermal imagers, &#8216;night sun&#8217; technology, and long range acoustic devices.
LRADs have been described as sonic lasers, sending out high-volume warning messages in local languages at decibel levels said to be physically debilitating.
At first, all seemed to work extremely well. APMSS principal Nick Davis reported that he had six teams of three booked out to various shipowners, at £8,000-£12,000 per trip, depending on duration. That is about half what it would cost for the armed equivalent. Use of an acoustic device had even warded off an attack on an unnamed chemtanker, he said.
But the efficacity of reliance purely on non-lethal force has come under question following the hijack of chemical tanker Biscaglia on Friday, despite the presence of an APMSS team on board. The team was later recovered from the water by a coalition navy helicopter.
It would be unfair to blame the company for the vessel&#8217;s fate; after all, the ship was within the Maritime Security Patrol Area, ostensibly a safe corridor for merchant shipping, and was following a French-led convoy.
It now seems that the failure of the company&#8217;s LRADS was a major factor in its seeming inability to prevent the capture of the ship. It is now openly being asked whether or not they are up to the job.
LRADs generate noise levels of around 150 dB, which is well above the maximum legal limit in the music clubs so popular with young people today, for instance.
But older readers of an age to remember 1970s rock shows by the likes of Motörhead and the Ramones regularly subjected their tender young ears to blasts measured at around 148 dB for those at the front of the gig, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Given that a fair chunk of the middle-aged populace once willingly handed over good money to spend repeated Saturday nights exposed to volumes of this order &#8212; and don&#8217;t yet require a hearing aid &#8212; the obvious question arises of just how effective the gear can be. Moreover, it is a simple matter for the pirates to don ear defenders.
Mr Davis told Lloyd&#8217;s List that he did not wish to go into too many details of the incident, for fear of compromising the crew that remained on board the captured ship. &#8220;However, there was an awful lot to be learned from the incident. I&#8217;m very worried and concerned for other security companies that could put themselves in danger, that&#8217;s for sure.&#8221;
The whole incident took 40-50 minutes, he said. At one stage, the men considered the possibility of using lethal force. Unsurprisingly, that is difficult to do if you do not have weapons to hand.
&#8220;I can absolutely give you my word that the guys were going to take [the pirates] out. 
&#8220;When they regrouped on the roof, they were gesturing to the French to drop weapons, so they could take the guys out.
&#8220;It was an intense time and one where they aggravated the pirates quite a lot, because they were firing rocket flares at them and all sort. Very long, drawn out and an amazing situation.
&#8220;They were under intense fire when they decided it was time to leave the ship, when they found out there were six pirates on there with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades.&#8221;
However, Mr Davis did not agree that what happened compromises his basic non-lethal business model: &#8220;It doesn&#8217;t, because there were several things that happened with the ship and which we have, over the weekend, come up with a solution for.
&#8220;It wasn&#8217;t a straightforward case of the vessel being under attack, there being a few problems or then suddenly nothing happening.&#8221;
In particular, there was only one acoustic device on board, which was tethered to the stern railings, while the pirates attacked from the port bow. There was little or no time to deploy the LRAD, which does not have its own power source.
&#8220;To run 150 m with a 40 kg item, on a ship&#8217;s deck across pipes and everything else, you just can&#8217;t do that.&#8221;
He did admit to second thoughts about this kind of kit, which he considers to be now shown up as ineffective for anti-piracy work.
&#8220;What I am saying is that the pirates were basically laughing at our guys while shooting them out. LRADs don&#8217;t work when they take an AK-47 round through them.
&#8220;As far as I&#8217;m concerned, it&#8217;s not an essential part of the equipment to deter an attack. There just needs to be a better system in place.&#8221;
Nevertheless, APMSS will stick to unarmed work, and Mr Davis said that the only people who should be armed are the coalition.
Other security specialists, while cautioning shipowners not to get trigger happy for the sake of it, argue that guards with only non-lethal equipment are insufficient for particularly vulnerable vessels, or where cargoes have a high value.
They say that with pirates continually gaining in sophistication, armed guards are now the only real option in the Gulf of Aden, even though the risks of escalating firefights are more than apparent.
Up to a point, Mr Davis agrees: &#8220;I would agree with that, but those are not the jobs that we are going to be doing.&#8221;
APMSS said it would make full details of the incident public when the ship was free and the crew were safe. Mr Davis said this would exhonerate its employees from mainstream media suggestions that they wilted at the first sign of danger.
&#8220;These were typical armchair comments, really. There will be a bit of a change in people&#8217;s view, there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever. It was a horrendous situation, the guys just ran out of options after an hour and there was nothing else that they could do.&#8221;

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