Siren mode
But other than arming crews - a move opposed by ship owners and maritime organisations alike - what measures can be put in place to keep ships, their crew, and cargo safe?
Long-Range Audio Device (L-RAD) and Magnetic Acoustic Device (MAD) are pieces of equipment that many ships are now starting to deploy. Classified as a 'non lethal' weapon they create a beam of sound that can travel far further than sound from a normal loud speaker.
Vahan Simidian CEO of HPV Technologies, who developed MAD, explained how it all worked.
"We create our sound through what we call a plane sound source of information, which means a message can be heard a long way away.
The long throw planar magnetic speaker can be heard miles away
"If the captain had concerns about a vessel, they would activate siren mode on the MAD. That will definitely get their attention. You would then tell them that you know that they are there, and that they do not have the element of surprise.
"Should they keep on closing, the captain would commence evasive actions and switch on 'tone' - this is a piercing sound that will irritate and disorientate them," he said.
Currently they are used to communicate to a potential attacker that the ship knows they are there, but experts say that on full power it could knock someone off their feet.
"For now, the speakers on a merchant vessel aren't capable of hurting a person. Is our technology capable of hurting someone? Absolutely," said Mr Simidian.
Barbed wire
Nick Davis, a former pilot who runs Anti-Piracy Maritime Security Solutions, an organisation set up to help protect merchant vessels, has three-man teams working on vessels in the Gulf of Aden.
He said that ships - and more importantly ship owners - need to take precautions to help themselves.
"There are certain types of ship that are liable to pirate attack. It needs to be slow moving - less than 20 mph - and have a low freeboard (that's the distance between the water and the deck)," he said.
"For vulnerable vessels, the usual measures employed when a ship leaves port is to hang barbed wire all the way round it, flood the ballast tanks, keep the fire hoses on full power and maintain a permanent deck watch.
"If any [small] ship comes within a mile, you sound the general alarm and crank up the Long-Range Audio Device (L-RAD) and get all the crew on deck."
Nick Davis said that having technology such as L-RAD or MAD, along with an alert crew, can make all the difference.
His team recently helped repel an attack on an 8,500 tonne chemical tanker.
"The team identified three boats coming at speed - once they got within a mile, they activated the piracy general alarm. The ship increased speed, and called local coalition forces on VHF.
"The L-RAD was activated and the crew got on deck. The pirates got within 400m brandishing weapons. However, we were sending warning tones via the L-RAD and eventually they withdrew."
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Wed, 19 Nov 2008
or deafen him