When pressed for further information, the captain would simply give one of his not-to-worry shrugs and walk away. We were told to lock the door of the safe room behind us, but the rules to follow after this point seemed decidedly vague. At a time of crisis, no crewmen would be available to guide us or answer our questions. My fellow passenger and I were shown the rather-complicated route we were to take in order to reach this room, and we were advised to learn the route well. If we ever heard this signal, day or night, we were immediately to go to an area deep in the bowels of the ship called the “safe room” — a grim, windowless space without seating, without toilet facilities, and without access to water. A special alarm signal was then played for us.
I and my fellow passenger ‚Äî a German who, fortunately for me, spoke better English than some of my friends back home ‚Äî were warned to limit our exposure on deck, particularly at night. I never saw a gun during the entire length of the four-and-a-half-month, around-the-world voyage. There were also rumors of some members of the crew being given firearms, but the captain shrugged away any questions regarding this matter. If any boarders made it on deck, they‚Äôd be greeted by locked doors and coils of barbed wire placed in each one of the outside stairwells. (The captain came to personally inspect my cabin, tactfully not mentioning my sloppily made bed and my stack of empty beer cans.)Ī live electrical wire was positioned around the ship‚Äôs railing to deter boarders.
Cargoship threw pirate waters route windows#
Curtains in cabin windows had to be kept closed to insure that no light leaked out of them. This meant turning off all the deck lights. He ordered that no lights on the ship would be visible at night.
Cargoship threw pirate waters route movie#
However, I was surprised that the captain of the movie vessel seemed to take none of the precautions that the captain of my ship did.Īfter sailing south through the Suez Canal and down the length of the Red Sea, we waited near the entrance to the Indian Ocean, hoping to find other ships with which we might make a convoy to get us safely through pirate territory. Seeing the ship used in the movie brought back many memories: the cabins, the galley, the stairs, the corridors, the deck ‚Äî all looked familiar. This ship traveled through those same waters. I went to this movie with special interest, because I sailed as a passenger on a similar cargo ship (this one German) in the summer of 2010. The new Danish movie ‚ÄúA Hijacking‚Äù concerns a cargo ship taken over and held for ransom by Somali pirates in the waters off the east coast of Africa.
Numerous precautions were taken, some of them quite unappealing.
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