The National
03/31/2013
The founders of a private navy being launched to escort merchant ships through the pirate-infested waters of the Gulf of Aden hope to base the operation in the UAE.
Called Typhon, the company already has an office in Dubai and a UAE registered website - www.typhon.ae - and it says it plans for its force of escort ships to become operational by July. Typhon's tactics will be broadly based on Britain's Royal Navy's basic convoy plan, which proved so effective during the Second World War.
The company, which is based in London, has Simon Murray, the
non-executive chairman of the mining giant Glencore, as its chairman,
and has on its board, the former chief of the United Kingdom defence
staff, Lord Dannatt, and Admiral Harry Ulrich, the former commander of
United States naval forces in Europe.
"Typhon was created in order
to address the specific threat from pirates in a number of key
geographies. The areas we will protect are too vast for current naval
resources to monitor effectively," said Typhon's chief executive,
Anthony Sharp. "Our mission is to combat the problem of maritime crime
and piracy using methods that are both effective and proportionate to
the threat.
"With millions paid out in ransoms to pirates and much
more money lost by businesses in fuel costs avoiding pirates, it is
important that businesses are granted a safer passage with their cargo
through dangerous waters. The benefits to business will be substantial."
Typhon
is one of two private naval ventures aimed at protecting against the
pirate threat. The other, another London-based enterprise, founded by
Lloyd's insurance brokers, is the Convoy Escort Programme (CEP). It,
however, has still to complete its launch financing. Currently the
incidence of pirate attacks in waters around the Gulf is falling,
according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) - a specialised
division of the International Chamber Of Commerce.
"IMB's piracy
figures show a welcome reduction in hijackings and attacks to ships. But
crews must remain vigilant, particularly in the highly dangerous waters
off East and West Africa," said Captain Pottengal Mukundan, the
director of the IMB, which has monitored piracy worldwide since 1991.
In
Somalia and the Gulf of Aden, just 75 ships reported attacks last year
compared with 237 in 2011. This is due to navies deterring piracy off
Africa's east coast, with pre-emptive strikes and robust action against
mother ships, said the IMB. But the threat and capability of heavily
armed Somali pirates remain strong, say both Typhon's Mr Sharp and CEP's
spokesman Angus Campbell.
Their services are urgently needed by
the shipping industry because Operation Atalanta, the European Union's
anti-piracy naval patrol in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden, comes to
an end next year, and also current US defence cuts will likely see US
naval operations in the area curtailed, they say.
There are also
complex legal issues surrounding current anti-pirate protection for
merchant ships, specifically the carrying of guns by on-board security
teams. Both Typhon and CEP say their defensive models will get around
such issues.
The company intends to deploy an initial three
converted container feeder ships, each of about 10,000 tonnes, to carry
between four and six small fast patrol boats (FPBs) capable of speeds
over 40 knots. Typhon has already bought the first container ship and
has put out to tender the contract to convert her to yards in the UAE,
China and Singapore.
Each ship will carry a crew of 20, and have
40 "security personnel" on board to man the FPBs, recruited from
ex-Royal Marines. The ships will also carry a drone, for long range
surveillance to detect any suspicious vessels approaching the convoy,
which can then be intercepted by an FPB. Although the FPBs will be
heavily armed, said Mr Sharp, "this will not be about lethal force
matching lethal force. We are there to deter. Once any approaching
pirate sees he is facing a credible force, experience tells us he will
not risk an attack."