Among those who have gone down to the sea in ships, the thought of being boarded by pirates sends chills down the spine. Unlike Disney's romantic Pirates of the Caribbean, real pirates are simply armed criminals looking for helpless prey caught far from aid. Throughout most of history, they have been small, isolated gangs hoping to strike and escape before detection is possible. Sailors' greatest fear is that they might slaughter witnesses to avoid identification.
Occasionally, however, geopolitical forces provide an opportunity for organized maritime criminals to create a safe haven for themselves. When that happens, pirate crews become emboldened, thinking they are safe from reprisals. Such is currently the case in Somalia, where political collapse provided an opening for just such a pirate haven.
Figure 1: LRAD directed-sound system acts as a loudspeaker with an effective range of 300 to 3,000 m.
Technology is helping an ad hoc alliance of major maritime nations mount a measured response to this threat. For example, in early April, while western media focused on an incident where a pirate attack on a U.S. flag freighter escalated into a hostage situation, the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force used an LRAD 1000X directed sound system manufactured by American Technology Corporation (ATC) to help prevent another pirate attack off the coast of Somalia, this time on a Singaporean tanker. Responding to the tanker's distress call, the Japanese destroyer, Suzunami, used powerful voice commands to identify itself and warn the pirates away.
The directed-sound system, which can be seen in an Asian News Network (ANN) report available on YouTube, acts as a powerful loudspeaker capable of communicating from 300 meters to over 3,000 meters with authority and high intelligibility. The Japanese vessel used vocal commands and powerful warning tones to warn the pirates away from their intended victim. The ANN report, unfortunately, is entirely in Japanese. A related report includes comments in English by a French Naval officer describing the international anti-piracy effort.
According to ATC, the company's proprietary Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRAD) are currently used in a variety of government, military and commercial applications around the world, including deployments with the U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Army, and U.S. Navy. "LRAD has been successfully deployed to help stop several pirate incidents off the Horn of Africa over the last four years," said Tom Brown, president and CEO of American Technology. "Beginning with the attack on the Seabourn Spirit in November 2005, Somali pirates have become increasingly brazen in their attempts to seize ships, crew and cargo for ransom. We are increasing our efforts to support domestic and international military and commercial security forces in the fight to take back the seas from 21st century pirates."
Leave a comment