FAIRCHEM BOGEY pirated from Salalah Anchorage

http://thoughtso.wordpress.com/2011/08/20/thats-a-dare-pirates-catch-omanis-napping-21-indians-to-pay-the-price/

Here's Jugal Purohit's blog on the subject of the FAIRCHEM BOGEY piracy from Salalah (Oman/Muscat) anchorage in broad daylight.

More follows.


Pirates of the Somali basin, early this morning, took their prowess a notch above when they managed to whisk out a chemical/oil tanker right from under the nose of the authorities at the Port of Salalah. The MT Fairchem Bogey (IMO: 9423750; GRT: 15190; Flag: Marshall Island) was at anchorage, barely 4-5 nautical miles from the shore after entering the port in the early hours of August 18.
The Fairchem Bogey was to load 20,000 tonnes of methanol later today and sail out on August 21.
Even though the disease of piracy has forced the Europeans and Chinese to deploy naval assets to safeguard their economic interests, it was only today that this neighbouring port which claims to be a ‘worldclass transshipment hub’ was woken up to the reality of being in a conflict zone. Unfortunately though, the price for this folly is being paid by the hijacked crew of 21 Indians on board the ship.
Latest positions reveal the ship as travelling south-west, towards Somalia and has logged atleast 90 nautical miles since being taken over. As far as the news of this development, which can affect ‘business interests’, it is learnt that it may just be relegated to the cold storage in Omani media.

Sequence of events
According to a source, it was a dhow (Ocean-going trawler) which was used by the pirates to work its way up to the ill-fated ship and hijack it. “For a dhow to be in the anchorage is very normal, unlike in the other ports. That is because, this area sees a lot of unregistered trade which dhows carry out. The reach of these dhows extends from the Gujarat coast in India till the Horn of Africa,” said a source located in Salalah.
However, an alert sailor on watch duty onboard the Fairchem Bogey actually detected something amiss and raised an alarm. “Immediately, the crew hurried to the strong-house or citadel and locked themselves up. From there, they pleaded with the port authorities for help,” the source added. Simultaneously, an unknown number of pirates’ managed to climb onboard the ship. “It was the crew’s misfortune that one or two crew members could not make it to the citadel and were left out. This worked to the pirates advantage as the well-armed bandits apprehended the isolated crew members,” the official added.
A practice followed very religiously is that once even a single crew member falls into the hand of an armed pirate, then all means of using force to secure their fate are withdrawn. This is done to avoid risking the life/lives of the crew member/s.
With that act of apprehending, the fate of the 21 Indians onboard, thus was sealed.
In addition to this, the pirates also got two full hours to force the remaining crew out of the citadel and complete their mission. Once done, the ship charted its course to the Somali badlands. As per information available, the captain of the ship also communicated to the authorities that armed pirates had taken charge of the ship and thus all action be suspended.
Security Level 1
Speaking to a local operator, aware of the inner-workings of the Salalah port, it was understood that despite the proximity to the Somali and Yemeni coast – the springboards of the modern-day piracy – the state of alert at the port was at level one. Effectively, this would translate into a ‘normal’ state of affairs with hardly any enhanced security measures in place. Could this have been averted? “Of course. The authorities here have rather been lax as something as daring as this has never even been conceived,” he stated.

“At present, the authorities are desperately seeking clues on this spectacular raid. Inquiries are being made and rumours mills are working over-time. But the fact remains that they have little or no lead,” added the source.
Helpless in such cases: DG Shipping
In a document accessed, the DGS, which has often attracted flak for being unable to react effectively to this malaise, has admitted that it has virtually no jurisdiction to tackle cases like this even where Indian interests are involved.
The port authorities meanwhile did not immediately offer a comment.

More on the mt PAVIT (IMO 9016636)

As quoted in today's Times of India:-

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Pavit-set-adrift-near-city-on-purpose/articleshow/9510708.cms

MUMBAI: The drifting of Panama-flagged MT Pavit to the Mumbai coast still remains a mystery but experts in the maritime industry feel the vessel may have been brought close to Mumbai on purpose and set adrift.

Veeresh Malik, expert on shipping and marine security issues, said, "There had to be some sort of intervention to ensure the ship stayed afloat. MT Pavit is not even in decrepit condition. This means the vessel remained afloat by way of tow or because some basic repairs were carried out."

The ship was reported to have sunk after it was abandoned off the Oman coast on June 29. The crew members of the abandoned vessel, which ran aground at Versova beach on July 31, were rescued by a US naval ship and brought to Kandla by Jag Pushpa.

Pointing out that the "winds and currents at this time of the year would not push the ship southwards down from Omani coast" towards India, Malik said, "It should have drifted towards the Gulf of Kutch. The fact that it moved in the direction of Mumbai leads to suspicion that it did get some assistance."

It is implausible that an abandoned vessel can drift for miles without being detected, especially in one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. "If a ship is unmanned, then it would not transmit any recognition signals on its AIS (automatic identification signals). However, if a ship transmits its AIS, then somebody has to be tracking its movements. This is the standard operating procedure for owners and insurers."

A member of the ship breakers' association said, "After MT Pavit was abandoned, there were no reports to indicate that its owners/insurers were trying to have it towed or repaired. It is the moral duty of the shipping company to save the life of crew members and salvage the ship."

He said MT Pavit's owners could have easily arranged for it to be towed to the Oman coast for repairs. "It is a mystery why the owner did not do this as the hull of the ship is in good condition and there is nothing to indicate a fuel leak."

The mv PAVIT - yet another ship founders off Mumbai, a derelict this time!

http://www.moneylife.in/article/the-pavitmdashyet-another-attempt-to-hit-mumbai/18556.html

The Pavit—yet another attempt to hit Mumbai?
August 01, 2011 03:29 PM |
Veeresh Malik

 

The grounding of the Pavit off the coast of Mumbai cannot be, once again, attributed to bad weather and coincidence. It is amply clear that something is afoot, and that our security agencies are absolutely clueless—despite all the big talk—about what is happening right off our jetties and wharfs. Somebody or something is trying to do more than play marbles or video games with dead ships let loose near the city

What exactly is happening, why and how are derelict ships with suspicious antecedents drifting to Mumbai's shores, so frequently; and more importantly, what can be done about it?

The media is full of reports about how yet another ship is gracing the Mumbai coastline, and reports seem to centre around how a small tanker, the MV Pavit, with a lower freeboard, does not look as impressive as a not-so-large container ship with high cubics and taller freeboard. There is the usual reportage, the expected pass-the-buck kind of response, and the truth of course lies somewhere else. Here are some facts.

# About a month ago, towards the end of June 2011/early July 2011, the Pavit, (IMO number 9016636) with a complement of 13 Indians on board, on a voyage from the Persian Gulf towards Somalia, reported engine trouble and sought assistance after being adrift for three days. Read an account of the rescue operation in the report titled, (Fleet Air Arm helicopter rescues seamen off Oman.)

# The seafarers were transferred to another merchant ship, the Jag Pushpa, and repatriated to India. The Pavit was apparently left to her fate in the waters of the Arabian Sea. There are rumours that the Pavit was acting as a supplier of marine fuel to Somalia to facilitate piracy activity, and that this was one of the reasons why the crew chose to abandon the ship. Why the owner, or the insurers, did not send one of the many ocean-going rescue tugs to tow the ship back is not known.

# The Pavit, in all appearances, is a well-maintained ship. It is not old, either, or decrepit. If an engine failure for three days in mid-ocean meant seafarers started abandoning ships, then probably a large percentage of the world's fleet would have been derelict by now. The simple fact that the Pavit after she was abandoned did not sink, means that there was some intervention by somebody to ensure that she stayed afloat. This was likely by way of a tow as well as some basic minimal repairs in the reported leakage from the stern gland. Incidentally, stern glands leak all the time, and repairing them while at sea is a very normal and fairly simple practice.

# This time of the year, winds and currents do not push ships southwards down from the Omani coast towards India. Quite the opposite, actually, as any basic knowledge of what happens during the south-west monsoon will reveal. Even if it has drifted due to some freak weather, the prevailing tendency would have been to move towards the Gulf of Kutch. To reach without any assistance the coast of Mumbai is absolutely impossible.

# There is no information from the Director General of Shipping on whether an inquiry or investigation was carried out on the Indian crew and complement of the Jag Pushpa as well as the Pavit when they landed in India. There is no information on who the registered agents for the Pavit were, what information they may have provided about the status of the ship after it was abandoned, and most importantly, what attempts were being made, if any, to regain control of the Pavit.

So, what could have been done?

# A dead ship drifting around in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world is certain to have been noticed by a vast variety of ships and reported in. Especially if she was not transmitting any recognition signals on her AIS (automatic identification signals). However, if she was transmitting her AIS, then certainly there was somebody, somewhere who was tracking her as she got closer and closer to the Indian coast; this is standard operating procedure for owners and insurers.

# One of the easiest measures would be for satellite tracking of all ships which are within 12 miles, or even more, of the Indian coast. This data is freely available. The big question is which agency will take this data, analyse it, spot the odd ones out which are not transmitting their AIS signals, or are too close without any business to be there? A proposal that seafarers, who are between exams, to be deputed to handle such information under a Vessel Tracking Scheme has been hanging fire for decades now, as the assorted ministries still try to get their act together.

# Rescue co-ordination, even if done in the Indian Ocean by a British warship, is monitored in India. The Jag Pushpa, by law, is supposed to provide full information on the episode to the Indian authorities. This information then becomes the core of an inquiry and investigation, especially since the seafarers on the Pavit were also Indians, and this could easily have provided ample advance information on the true antecedents of the Pavit as well as the shape of things to come.

Interim, on the basis of educated opinion as well as circumstantial evidence, it can safely be surmised that this ship, also, was somehow brought to within miles of the Mumbai coast and then released. That it landed on the coast of Juhu and not somewhere else, is more a question of nature favouring us again than anything else.

Piracy redux - April 2011

The Indian media has been generally shy and quiet about seaborne piracy issues lately, barring reportage every now and then on Indian Navy action, as well as reportage on the status of the captured pirates. Coverage on the reality onboard hijacked ships has been less than scanty, one reason being given is that it is being done to protect the lives of those still in captivity, as well as to prevent further hindrance to negotiations.

Likewise, governance in shipping in India, which means the DG Shipping and allied offices, have also adopted a policy of staying below the radar as far as piracy is concerned. Quiet back-door negotiations and discretion are the buzzwords of the day, it would seem, with everybody being advised to stay away from the media.

All this would be well said and done if issues were reaching some form of closure as well as sustainable resolution. However, reality is that things are going from bad to worse, and across a variety of parameters. Pirates are reaching out further and deeper into the Indian Ocean as well as striking closer to the coasts of countries not just in Africa but also in and around India. The SUSAN K, for example, was hijacked just 35 miles off the Omani coast, and reports of attacks from close to the Indian coast have been filtering in.

Reports on how seafarers are being tortured onboard, as well as beaten or even killed, are also filtering through. Pirates seem to have gone forward from treating captives reasonably well to outright violence and terror. One case of "keel hauling", where a seafarer was tied to a rope and then pulled across the bottom from one side to the other has already been reported - pulled too fast, the barnacles would rip him apart, and pulled too slow, he would drown.

Other cases, involving Indian seafarers, include a Chief Engineer and a Master being locked up in the fridge room for half an hour at 17 below zero centigrade - hung to the meathooks so that they could not move. There ave been a few cases, reportedly, of people being tied naked on to a hot steel deck, with heat applied to the genitals. Being hog tied with wires being tied around the genitals has also been reported. A few cases of seafarers having been killed have also now surfaced. And ofcourse, the regular beatings as well as terrified calls home, with automatic weapons going off in the background.

It is also obvious that the issue of vastly increased insurance costs are now beginning to impact all parties concerned - and will not remain something that the shipping lines and ship owners/managers can hope will just go away somewhere else. Furthermore,the various naval forces involved are also reaching a point where they soon will provide assistance preferably to ships which have taken some pre-emptive action on their own, so that they can board and take action in case of pirate attacks basis certain minimum guidelines and safety precautions followed by the ship itself.

One of these preventive defence measures has to do with what is called "citadel". Till now, for many ship's crew, that meant a re-modified steering gear, with access to the after-peak tank for sanitation purposes. Or being cooped up inside a control room. Either way, the pirates have been smoking people out, or simply breaking through the steel doors using explosives or basic tools. Maximum period of safety would, typcially, be a few hours.

It is increasingly clear that something more will have to be done. Just a few fire-hoses and axes are not enough anymore either. From making the bridge bullet-proof, to installing stern facing radars for coverage of vessels coming up from aft, and installing electric barbed wire running along the shipside at the bare minimum to vessel hardening by making the complete below decks accomodation area into a citadel which is explosion proof and more.

Idea is in brief to provide the complete ship's company an opportunity to move into a secure area, in case all other options including armed guards have failed and the vessel has been boarded by pirates, where they can remain in communications as well as see what is going on for a period of atleast 3 or 4 days. This will also imply that due care has to be taken for ensuring safe ventilation and de-activation  of halon or other gases used variously for fire-fighting and otherwise.

The 3-4 day period is important because naval intervention in case of piracy attacks in the further reaches of the ocean will often take that much time.

It is important for seafarers and ship owners/managers as wel as flag state and port state authorities to come together and find ways to resolve these issues. And soon.

if we DO NOT want to see shipping become a pigsty like civil aviation in India . . .

One way of looking at the recent controvery on fake and fraudulent licences in the aviation industry in India and also in some other countries is to say, oh hey, it doesn't impact us in the Merchant Navy. We have this wonderful system of flag state, port state and every other state possible which will protect our reputations as well as ensure we are competent. In addition, the paperwork is so long and cumbersome, that it automatically sifts out the chances of any problems. Plus, because of security and customs regulations, nobody will come near our ships anyways.

The other way of looking at things is to realise that, hey yes, there are deficiencies in the whole system, not just in India, but all over the world. And that the sooner we take some pragmatic steps to fix things, the better for us as individuals and for the industry as a whole and most importantly - for the Nation as a larger National Interest. And even if they don't come near our ships, those who want to find out will stand outside the Ministry and DG Shipping and find out what they want - after they've hired boats to take photos of ships outside ports and visited family members.

So, without pointing any fingers, what can be done rapidly to clean up things in the whole certification programme and training in India - so that we are not caught with our pants down if somebody does the equivalent of a nose landing on an aeroplane, at sea? What, for example, could be amongst the most stupid things a seafarer could do?

Here are two simple examples of two of the biggest news-making marine accidents in recent past. They made news because of possible pollution issues as well as passengers in danger. But hardly any news on the real cause of the incident. Mainly because the shipping lines along with their flag state, port state and classification societies were able to keep the noise level down. Very simple - keep the media away, and keep the people onboard silent.

# Go aground on an island, thinking it was a dense cloud, sighted only on the radar, making coffee instead on the bridge taking precedence to looking out.

# An uncontained crank-case explosion leading to leakage of a thin film of diesel causing a total engine room fire, because the duty engineers had no experience of how to react.

Luckily for us, the mainstream media does not have the faintest clue of what happens on board ships, and almost all of us from the old school of thought believe that the media is a terrible animal to be kept at bay. When was the last time any shipping company invited media onboard their ships, for example, other than for a fancy party during launching or taking over, and even that ashore at a hotel? Like a response to the various questions put by a Superintendent ashore - please let me know this, this, and this - and also please let me know if you understand the effect if media comes to know, and provide a response by 0800 hours tomorow morning Singapore time.

At the same time, for piracy and criminalisation and other increasingly relevant problems, the industry wants to use the media, by one means or the other - and that is a simple truth too. The media, the mainstream meida, is a double edged sword, and once an industry rides the tiger, there is no getting off.

So, before the s___ really hits the fan - and the way social media is growing, especially with seafarers at sea increasingly having access to the internet as well as other mediums to propagate their views - it is a question of time before people onboard ships start coming out with their truths. instead of keeping quiet. Already younger people are writing in direct to this magazine, as well as to some of the writers here, and if not allowed to maintain blogs on board - then saving up material, photographs, evidence, to publish at a later date. A few photographs of oil being pumped out, dirty food, unsanitary conditions on board, safety irregularities, rusty conditions, or anything like that - and by chance any of them go viral - that's it. Owners of the MSC CHITRA will know what one is writng about, and the KHALIJA III even more so.

So here are a few suggestions to the powers that be, and SAILOR TODAY invites comments as well as further responses on the subject.

1) To start with, face it, the best thing in the Indian Merchant Navy's certification system is that the main Competency Certification is still done by the regulatory authoirty - the MMD and DG Shipping. You can not be a certified deck or engine officer unless you have cleared your "tickets", issued by the Government, wonderful. Luckily for us, unlike in the aviation sector, this has not been left to the training schools. Except for the entry level. Still, there is ample room for manipulation even there, and it is about time that the examinations for aspirants leaving training institutions need to be carried out by a government body before the youngsters are allowed to even step onboard a ship. Even as cadets.

This may certainly place a heavy load on the already overloaded and creaking system - well, so be it. There are ways of using infotech to do this, online exams under supervision are only one way, but  atleast there will be some standardisation on who steps on board a ship and who doesn't. Currently all sorts of lack of capabilities along with well trained people manage to get documents enabling them to get onboard - that has to be fixed.

2) Next, for the Certificate of Competencies, the courses need to be reviewed, rejuvenated and renewed with urgency. The British in their wisdom left us an examination system in the Merchant Navy that still works on learning by rote, memorising vast amounts of often useless and defunct information, and then spilling it out in large volumes on paper. The whole method is geared towards memorising solutions of questions, so that books published decades ago can continue to be sold, in a mutual backscratch venture that would put cats and monkeys to shame. This has been said umpteen times before, then people get their tickets, and forget about the whole thing - meanwhile, the system goes on. Same holes are there on the same charts for ROC, right?

This has to be changed - more syllabus drawn from actual life on modern ships as well as even more importantly - from future design and technology expected on ships. For reasons of my own I took 27 years between two subsequent levels of competency - and the syllabus was exactly the same as done by my batchmates who cleared well in time. In between, I had moved on, headed a Silicon Valley tech company where skillsets were changing every three months - and saw how the youngsters coming in were keeping up in those industries. Matter of fact, the rise of employment potential in the shipping industry for Indians could have been as exponential as in the IT industry, if only the system had moved on with the times.

Here, the young people doing their "tickets" with me were actually being asked to regress back in time, learn about stuff that had gone out 3 decades ago - and then go on really state of the art modern ships to unlearn everything so that they could work on things they had to learn from scratch on their own using tech manuals provided by the equipment supplier. What was the use of the examination, then?

3) The grand wonder called "orals". Sit with the younger people doing their tickets nowadays and listen to them - it is almost as though we are living in archaic times. Such and such surveyor demands that you must wear a suit. Another one expects you to wait for hours and sometimes days before calling you in. Yet another one expects you to wear a shirt in such and such colour and shoes of a particular sort. Many of them are keen to show what they know rather than extracting from you what you know or don''t know. Some will argue about what you were taught by somebody because they don't like that college or instructor. Yet some more will go out of course. And bar none, it seems that almost all of them treat the candidate like SHIT, because of their own insecurities or because that is how it was always done.

It is about time that all orals were video recorded, and that candidates were given a chance to go in for appeal in case they felt their results were incorrect, and in a manner that prevents those candidates from being harmed in revenge by vindictive surveyors. A certain percentage of failed candidates along with those who have asked for appeals to be given repeat attempts very soon after being failed needs to be introduced, and the process being done in such a way that the candidates have more faith in the system. In addition, minimum and mximum time limits to be set for orals, so that schedules are not disturbed.

4) The reality of non-Competency courses, also known variously as Modular or STCW and similar courses, is well known. With 100% pass percentages, lax attendance criteria and very often dis-interested instructors, this is one reality that is going to come back to bite us one day. Here again, some institutes are very thorough and professional about the seriousness with which they take charge of these courses, and at some other institutes it is simply a pay your fees kind of formality.

It is about time that the exams for the non-Competency courses were also streamlined and held by a central government agency, so that there could be some standardisation, especially since some of these modular courses deal with extremely important topics which can impact life and limb.

5) And last but not the least, the document trail, especially things like the linkage between the INDOS number, the CDC, the CoC and the rest of the documents. This needs to be sharpened up very rapidly, and details available online, as was supposed to have been done years ago.

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The future success of the Maritime certificate of competency system in India, and therefore subsequently and as a result the credibility of the CoC, will depend totally on the open-ness and transparency shown by the authorities. As well as their willingness to change with the times.

Otherwise, we have the example of the DGCA in front of us - and believe me, it is like people are baying for the blood of officials there. Interim, the credibility of pilots of Indian origin has taken a very big beating.

We do not want to see that happening to the Indian Merchant Navy.


Do we??

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