BACKHAUL: To haul a shipment back over part of a route which it has already travelled; a marine transportation carrier’s return movement of cargo, usually opposite from the direction of its primary cargo distribution.
APRON: The area immediately in front of or behind a wharf shed on which cargo is lifted. On the "front apron," cargo is unloaded from or loaded onto a ship. Behind the shed, cargo moves over the "rear apron" into and out of railroad cars.
BOATSWAIN (BOSUN) – The highest unlicensed rating on the ship with charge of all deck hands and who in turn comes under the direct orders of the master or chief mate or mate.
BOILERS – Steam generating units used aboard ship to provide steam for propulsion and for heating and other auxiliary purposes.
BONDED WAREHOUSE – An area of security approved by custom authorities for the safekeeping or deposit of goods liable for excise duty but not yet subject to that duty.
LASH SHIPS – LASH stand for Lighter Aboard Ship. It is a specialized container ship carrying very large floating containers, or ‘lighters’. The ship carries its own heavy-duty crane for loading and discharging the lighters over the stern. The lighters each have a capacity of about 400 tons and are stowed in the holds and on deck. While, the ship is at sea with one set of lighters, further sets can be made ready. Loading and discharge are rapid at about 15 minutes per lighter, no port or dock facilities are needed, and the lighters can be grouped for pushing by towboats along inland waterways.
LESS THAN CONTAINER LOAD – A consignment of cargo which is insufficient to fill a container? It is grouped with other consignments for the same destination in a container at a container freight station.
What To Do With A Captured Pirate?
Even as the list of captured pirates gets longer almost on daily basis, The BBC has raised a very interesting question…just what do you do with a captured pirate?
Warships patrolling Indian Ocean waters off the Somali coast are enjoying greater success in capturing pirates – but the legal challenges posed by 21st Century piracy raises question on what to do with suspects after they have been caught.
Isn’t it the responsibility of the country whose navy apprehended the pirates to prosecute?
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea defines piracy as a universal crime and gives sovereign nations the right to seize and prosecute pirates. But whether a country wants to prosecute arrested pirates depends on its own law. Experts say that several countries do not know how to incorporate the convention into their own jurisdiction.
According to the report, Fighting Piracy by Commander James Kraska and Captain Brian Wilson: “On the high seas or in any other place outside the jurisdiction of a state, such as Somalia’s ungoverned territorial seas, any nation’s warship may take action against piracy. Pirated ships may be boarded, the pirates can be detained and the property on board the vessel can be seized and submitted to admiralty and criminal courts. The registry or “flag” of the attacked vessel, the state of nationality of any of the victims or crew, the nationality of the on-scene warship, and, in some cases, coastal and port states, all have a valid basis for asserting jurisdiction. But it can take weeks or months to sort out these logistics and legal issues.”
About 20 warships from the navies of half a dozen countries operating under US, European Union and Nato commands police the pirate-infested waters. Many have signed agreements with Kenya, enabling them to send apprehended pirates there for trial.
Why are many countries reluctant to prosecute?
Suspected pirates have been taken to the US, France and the Netherlands, among others, for prosecution. Russia is reportedly considering bringing a group of suspected pirates to Moscow for trial.
But maritime experts have pointed out that the length of time taken to bring some of those cases to trial indicates the complexities involved.
In some cases, legal arguments have centred on how long the suspects were kept in detention before either getting legal assistance or being charged – possibly violating the legal process of the countries involved.
Cyrus Mody from the International Maritime Bureau says the logistical and legal burdens involved in transporting pirate suspects to Western countries can be daunting.
“It is difficult getting the pieces together, the evidence, the witnesses. Who’s going to pay for it all?
“And if a prosecution fails, the burden lies with that country. There is always the prospect that the suspected pirate might then claim asylum,” he told the BBC.
In some cases, suspects are simply released after they have been disarmed because of the potential legal headaches.
Why do most of the arrested pirates end up in Kenya?
Kenya, which borders Somalia, has signed agreements with the European Union, the US, Britain, Canada, China and Denmark to prosecute and jail pirates. It has been promised financial aid in return.
There are more than 100 suspected pirates in custody, either awaiting, or already on trial. But the process is slow – lasting up to a year – and costly.
In May, Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula said Kenya was unwilling to take on any more prosecutions and was to review the agreements. He said some of the countries had failed to give adequate financial support to Kenya’s strained justice system.
Mr Wetangula said a key problem was what would happen to the pirates after their jail terms were up.
What happens to the others?
Nato, Russia and India, among others, have not signed an agreement with Kenya and so their navies need to determine whether or not to bring the pirates home for trial or look for another Gulf of Aden littoral state to prosecute. This has proved difficult.
According to reports, the Indian Ocean island nation of the Seychelles is emerging as the second regional centre for trying pirates seized by EU naval units. Working with the UN, the country recently amended its criminal code to enable it to prosecute pirates under universal jurisdiction.
The EU has also opened negotiations with other countries in the region, including South Africa and Tanzania, in the hope of reaching agreements enabling the prosecution of suspected pirates.
What about setting up an international court?
In April, the United Nations Security Council adopted a Russian proposal to consider the creation of a new court to deal with piracy. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will be asked to report within three months on options for “a regional tribunal or an international tribunal and corresponding imprisonment arrangements”.
Some experts have argued, however, that this option would be costly and judicially cumbersome. There is still the issue of where convicted pirates would be held.
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MIDDLE MONEY MAN: The Story Of A Somali Who Made Fortunes As Middleman For Pirates
A Somali who used to import soft drinks and didn’t go beyond the seventh grade says he’s made hundreds of thousands of dollars brokering deals to free ships and their valuable cargos after pirates attack.
The 32-year-old Somali, who would be identified only by his alias, Abdi Sheik, says he helped gain the release earlier this year of a supertanker carrying an estimated $150 million of crude oil. He claims to have successfully negotiated the release of an arms-laden Ukrainian ship and the 20 sailors onboard.
In an interview with The Associated Press, he tried to justify his role, downplaying that he was dealing with criminals and that his own actions may be dubious.
“I’m just helping poor sailors caught up in a tag-of-war between greedy pirates and selfish ship owners,” Sheik insisted. “I don’t think I’m a criminal because I’m not part of the doers nor part of the receivers.”
Sheik allowed himself to be identified by only an alias for fear of reprisals or possible pursuit by Interpol. Details of his accounts of being a middleman could not be entirely verified, but Sheik has previously provided AP with reliable inside information about hijacked ships and a business associate confirmed his involvement in ransom negotiations.
Piracy is big business in Somalia, which has not had a functioning government since 1991. Somali pirates have collected far more than $100 million in the last several years. The International Maritime Bureau says sea attacks worldwide surged 39 percent in 2009 to 406 cases, the highest in six years.
Sheik, who hails from northeastern Somalia where the pirates are based, refused to specify how much he’s made as a middleman but indicated it is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
He described meetings held inside dark SUVs in which trust was scarce. Multimillion-dollar ransoms are haggled over like carpets at a market, he said.
Sheik said he first got into the business when a casual acquaintance from his clan called to ask for his help in releasing a Ukrainian vessel and its 20 crew members who were hijacked in September 2008. The job grew from there and by December 2009 he was being asked to help free the Greek oil supertanker Maran Centaurus.
The pirates started off asking for $9 million that time. Sheik, who was acting as a go-between for the negotiating teams, said that after weeks of back-and-forth he suggested to the Greek ship owner’s negotiators that they try offering $4.5 million. Sheik said the pirates responded: “Add one more million and the deal is done.”
Nearly two weeks after that over-the-phone deal was sealed, planes dropped $5.5 million encased in floatable boxes. The supertanker was freed the next day.
Somali pirates receive about 30 percent of ransoms they receive — on average $1 million to $2 million per boat, according to a 2009 memo prepared by the staff of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee that was based on an interview with a captured pirate. Another 30 percent is spent bribing local officials, 20 percent goes to group bosses and the rest goes toward things like guns, ammunition, fuel, food and cigarettes.
Sheik says self-styled negotiators like him try to get involved once there’s been a report of a new hijacking, contacting a ship owner to say the vessel can be released for a daily negotiating fee. Middlemen typically are paid directly by the ship owners.
Analyst Roger Middleton of the London-based Chatham House said the average ransom has spiked from $1 million two years ago to $2 million last year. Pirates are also believed to have netted as much as $7 million from one recently hijacked ship, he said.
Eight Months After Running Aground; Seli Wreck Removal Hits A Snag
The removal of coal from the holds of the shipwrecked bulker SELI 1 in Table Bay has run into a snag with expert reporting that the vessel is deteriorating rapidly.
Nevertheless the salvage team which undertook the removal of the cargo of 30,000 tonnes of coal originally loaded in Durban, has succeeded in recovering 21,000 tonnes ashore which has been sold to a local distributor.
The Turkish ship Seli 1 (19,031-gt, built 1980) ran aground one night in September last year while en route from Durban to Gibraltar. The vessel had put into Table Bay to undertake repairs but around midnight on 7 September the master reported his ship had lost engine power and was in danger of washing ashore, which it did a short while later after the anchor chain snapped. The grounding took place opposite Sunset Beach facing Cape Town……..
Efforts to strengthen and refloat the ship were thwarted by storms and bad weather during which the vessel was extensively damaged. This was followed by the abandonment of the vessel by her owners and insurers, leaving the cost of her salvage to the South African government in the form of SAMSA – South African Maritime Safety Authority.
Since then a small but determined group with a desire to remove the vessel from the Cape shoreline has been attempting to keep the momentum of the project going, despite the lack of direct funding, reports Captain Dave Colly of SAMSA in the Western Cape.
He said that the operation to remove the remainder of coal from the ship has ended, due to the equipment used for its removal having been substantially damaged by the elements and the cost of reinstating the equipment having become far too expensive for the return on cost.
In addition, he said, the facilities aboard will no longer safely and hygienically support the team of ‘coal miners’ and SMIT Salvage personnel aboard as well as the fact that the cranes have deteriorated over time.
“Recent hopes and enthusiasm for a refloating attempt were dashed when the highly professional naval architects and salvage masters of SMIT completed their calculations on the stresses and strains which would be placed on the Seli 1 in her present seriously damaged condition and predicted a 90 percent chance of failure.
“Given the accuracy of their predictions on the spectacular wreck reduction of the barge MARGARET in Jacob’s Bay, we have had to put that methodology to bed once and for all,” said Capt Colly.
“Nevertheless, no-one has conceded defeat yet and the team will continue to work towards the eventual removal of the Seli 1.”
He said that once the current storm being experienced in the Western Cape has subsided, the condition of the wreck will be evaluated and a decision made on whether to continue any wreck reduction activities over the winter pending a new operation in summer.
Colly said that small pockets of oil remain trapped within the wreck and are released from time to time through cracks in the hull, especially when there is appreciable swell and wave action.
“Regardless of whether the operation is temporarily suspended or not, SMIT will continue to monitor the structure of the wreck as well as the oil pollution threat and will remove any oil which presents itself in an accessible space onboard the wreck.”
The current storm has dislodged equipment on the shipwreck and local bathers should be aware that floating debris may still be in the area and pose a danger to swimmers and surfers.
Because of the danger no-one may board the vessel without the express permission of SAMSA or SMIT.
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