Why don big tankers have security onboard?
Security guards cost money. That’s one explanation. The second is, if you have cargo of a volatile nature, you don’t want to have a fire fight onboard. You have, for example, chemical tankers, tankers with aviation fuel, and oil tankers like the Sirius Star. If you’re the master of such a ship, you don’t want to have people shooting it out onboard. Some ship operators are considering going around the cape to avoid this territory. That means roughly 15 days more at sea, which drives up the cost considerably. That’s not likely to happen. At the moment the shipping industry is losing quite a lot of money. They simply cannot afford it. What can be done then? The best solution would be re-establishing law and order in Somalia, but that’s wishful thinking at the moment. The second best option is re-establishing law and order in Somali waters and the Gulf of Aden. NATO and now the European Union have operations there. But the best solution would be a regional effort. In the Gulf of Aden it wo
