Somali Pirates in for a Smackdown

Picture yourself in this scenario, you are driving down the interstate in a rented moving truck like U-Haul, Ryder, or your brother in law is helping you move with his company truck. You get cut off and forced off to the side of the road by not just one car or pickup truck but several. They pull guns on you and decide that your personal belongings are now theirs unless somebody pays the thugs aka highway pirates off. A ransom so to speak. You are now a hostage till somebody pays the ransom or your dead. The scary part of this whole scenario isn't that the ransom will be paid to save your life, it will be paid to save the truck. There is no help coming even if you called 911 that instant, help is one, two days, or even a week away. That is what is going on off of the coast of Somalia in the high seas shipping lanes and enough is enough.

I’m thinking that President Obama should cash in some of his world rock star tour chips and talk to his new friends in Europe, China, and the Middle East to see if they can offer some military help with this pandemic piracy problem. When you think about it, its their produced products heading through the area that needs protection so why the hell wouldn’t they offer assistance? I’m as liberal as the day is long but I can’t stand silent while our shipping lanes of the world are fair game for pirates. I can’t be silent when our merchant marines are attacked and they have no weapons to defend themselves with other than water cannons.

Doing nothing about the blatant theft and hijacking on the high seas is as bad as walking away from someone about to be murdered or raped. Yes the U.S. Military already has a presence in the area but try driving across Texas in a car at seventy miles per hour and see how long it takes you to get to the other side. Now try it at ten miles and hour in a war ship displacing thousands of tons of water! That is the area that our military is patrolling right now. More nations besides the United States and Great Britain need to step up to the plate or we need to deal with the source of the problem immediately. Over at the Daily News they have this to say on plans to fix the piracy problem on the high seas…

U.S. military already prepared with battle plans for Somalia pirates, say intelligence sources

BY James Gordon Meek
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Thursday, April 9th 2009, 5:06 AM

WASHINGTON - U.S. military commanders have already prepared battle plans for ending the scourge of piracy on the high seas off Somalia if President Obama pulls the trigger, sources told the Daily News Wednesday.

The Navy sent a warship to intercept Somali pirates Wednesday who hijacked a U.S.-flagged freighter, as commanders weighed military options for nailing the brigands' bases.

Retired U.S. Ambassador Robert Oakley, who was special envoy to Somalia in the 1990s, said U.S. special operations forces have drawn up detailed plans to attack piracy groups where they live on land, but are awaiting orders from the Obama national security team.

"Our special operations people have been itching to clean them up. So far, no one has let them," Oakley told the Daily News.

The veteran diplomat, who also was ambassador to Pakistan, said teams of Army Delta Force or Navy SEALs "could take care of the pirates in 72 hours" if given the order to strike. - Daily News

I hate to say it but this is the first test of President Obama and his diplomacy skills. He needs to take the lead where others are looking the other way. He can try to form an immediate world coalition to end piracy from Somalia or he can just deal with it using existing military plans and our own special forces. Either way, the shipping of commerce around the world and past the Somalia coast needs to be safe and free of gang like tactics.

Our merchant marines do not carry weapons on board these large ships transporting every possible product known to mankind. They are civilians just doing their job. Piracy anywhere in the world places an additional strain on the markets of free trade that in this point in time can be highly destructive to the recovery of the world markets. The clock is ticking for action President Obama. Tick, tock, tick, tock…

Papamoka

Energy Saving Cargo Ships

With the cost of diesel fuel running so high the cost of shipping products of any kind is effecting many of the things you and I buy every single day. Those big tankers and container ships do not get the kind of mileage your Chevrolet does and any cost savings to the company is a direct savings to the manufacturers which can then be passed on to the consumer. In the nutshell, if Sony can ship a product from Japan to the United States and the bill to do so is 10% or 35% lower then that savings can be passed on to you the consumer.

Originally, I found this on the Boston Globe but they didn’t do the piece any justice. Picture a tanker or container ship with a couple of huge parachutes pulling ahead of them. This is new technology but then again it isn’t. We used to call them clipper ships but the sails were attached to the ship itself and not on a tow line. This technology has tweaked that and improved it to save energy. Testing is still going on now as I type to see how much savings.

SkySails: Energy Saving Ideas For Sea Travel
by Amanda Gore in Ethical Consumerism, Transport & Travel, Environmental

Inspired by the most traditional of water-travel methods, SkySails aims to get cargo ships using wind power once again. With oil prices rising considerably, and industry increasingly interested in searching out cheaper alternatives, SkySails’ ‘wind propulsion system’ claims to be attracting a considerable amount of interest and it’s no great surprise why.

Essentially the system is two giant kites that act as sails that are connected through a towing rope rather than on a mast directly attached to the ship, plus a wind-optimised routeing system to get the best puff possible. According to the company, using the system average annual fuel costs can be lowered between 10-35% depending on the wind conditions, and up to 50% under optimal wind conditions. They estimate that at the current price of oil that could equate to a saving of 1/3 of a ship’s diesel costs. This has yet to be proved, though the company aims to do just that through it’s first commercial pilot, which launched on Tuesday. - PSFK

You can check out the video here… SkySails

When it comes to any energy savings device then I am all for it. From time to time I find these interesting little morsels of new technology and post them on Papamoka. Apparently, so are the Germans that created this new idea for the shipping industry. One thing is certain, OPEC is going to be in trouble if ideas like this one spread and somebody builds a better mouse trap.

I’m sure that there was thousands of ours engineering this idea and I heartily congratulate the people that are moving this forward. Any ideas that can make a dent in our worlds reliance on oil is a good thing. Sometimes it’s great being an infadel.

Check back here soon for the next tid bit of new thoughts on how to screw over big oil special interests. I have to tell you that this one blew me away and no pun intended.

Papamoka

Cross posted at Michaellinnjones.com and Bring IT ON!

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cargo ships, container ships, oil tankers, lpg tankers, cruise ships, shipping, diesel fuel, gallons per hour, energy saving, shipping news, cruise lines, wind surfing, wind power, green ships, world markets, world commerce, Europe, china, japan, Sky Sails, SkySails

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cargo ships, container ships, oil tankers, lpg tankers, cruise ships, shipping, diesel fuel, gallons per hour, energy saving, shipping news, cruise lines, wind surfing, wind power, green ships, world markets, world commerce, Europe, china, japan, Sky Sails, SkySails