Royal Australian Navy disrupts Somail pirate attack

[Hartley18]

I came across this one in the latest Ausmarine magazine and don't remember anyone reporting on this - I don't even think it made the news - but it makes for a very interesting story on a few counts:

HMAS Melbourne disrupts pirate attack in Arabian Sea - Royal Australian Navy

"The crew of MV CPO China had successfully secured themselves in the ship’s citadel (an anti-pirate stronghold) from where they could maintain satellite communications and control the ship. The engine controls and steering equipment for the tanker are located in the citadel."

Perhaps I've not been listening properly, but it's the first I've heard of ships being fitted with a 'citadel' - which obviously works.

Comments anyone??

[CalebD]

Good for you Aussies!
I had not heard anything about this either.
My boat is not big enough to have a 'Citadel', whatever that is.

[Hartley18]

It sounds to me like some kind of lock-down area that bad guys can't shoot their way into.

Personally, I'm surprised they don't just avoid the area entirely rather than go to the trouble of (what amounts to) rebuilding the bridge superstructure...

[Minnewaska]

I hadn't heard of too many bridges being retrofitted into a strong room. However, I thought it was standard procedure to disable the ship and move the crew to a safe room with comm.

[chall03]

Cool. Wow go the Aussie Navy......I'm kinda impressed they even found the Arabian Sea....federal budget increases must of mean't they were able to buy that second hand Garmin GPS off Ebay they have always wanted

Now maybe Sailnet needs some kind of Citadel???? Somewhere we can all hide from TDW when he goes on one of his rants

[VetMike]

Citadels have been around several years and are very effective. As noted, the crew can retreat to the citadel and can communicate and control the vessel from a secure location. The idea being that, if the rescuers know that all the crew is located in one safe locations, anyone running around elsewhere is a tango (bad guy). Problem is, citadels are quite expensive and the smaller shipping lines can't afford them or they don't want to afford them.

[wolfmanmike]

i like the idea of rigging a old boat with remote control explosives and wait for the pirates to board, boom!

[MarkofSeaLife]

Originally Posted by Hartley18

I Perhaps I've not been listening properly, but it's the first I've heard of ships being fitted with a 'citadel' - which obviously works.

Comments anyone??

Its normally called a Safe Room. All new ships are being built with them and older ships retrofitted (quickly!!). That they are able to control the ship is not much of a leap as one could imagine the engine room would be a perfect Safe Room and is already connected to the bridge.

So they just need one of those expensive wireless autopilot...
S1000 Wireless Autopilot System
$1,185.00 U.S. Dollars

Most ships I go past the crew seem to be already enclosed in their Citadels, the Bridge deserted with the 3rd mate, Mr Wong, lying in bed sometimes jabbing a finger at the porn video remote and sometimes accidently hitting the Nav remote!

I need one!!

Mark

[tdw]

Originally Posted by chall03

Cool. Wow go the Aussie Navy......I'm kinda impressed they even found the Arabian Sea....federal budget increases must of mean't they were able to buy that second hand Garmin GPS off Ebay they have always wanted

Now maybe Sailnet needs some kind of Citadel???? Somewhere we can all hide from TDW when he goes on one of his rants

[blt2ski]

Do not quote me, but there was and is a story about something similar, if not this story a week or so ago. Private boat, attacked, folks went into a safe room, then I thought a private boat with guns etc came along and scared the pirated off. It could have been the Aussie navy, and not reported as such. I do nto remember the name of the boat either.........

I personally can not imagine two privat boats in a week with similar story's and ending..... could be wrong, been there done that before. If I had to put money down, they are one and the same.....

Marty