Barbed Wire - Low-Tech Defence Against Pirates

I dare the pirates to crawl over razor wire in the clothes they wear, Per Gullestrup, chief executive of Danish Clipper Projects said.

Razor-sharp barbed wire strung along the deck railings of vessels can be an effective, low-cost foil to pirates at sea, and shipowners should adopt it widely, a Danish shipping executive said on Thursday.

Piracy has flourished in recent years, especially in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia, hitting key shipping lanes for world trade.

Poor, young, Somalis usually approach vessels with speedboats, scrambling on board with hooks, ropes and ladders, often wearing thin T-shirts, shorts or light pants and sandals.

"I dare the pirates to crawl over razor wire in the clothes they wear," Per Gullestrup, chief executive of Danish Clipper Projects, told Reuters.

"If everyone would do this, I think we could put a dent into piracy at a very low cost," he said by telephone from London.

The Danish Clipper Group, which has a large fleet of bulkers, tankers and other vessels, has learned the hard way.

It paid between $1 million and $2 million in ransom to free one of its vessels after it was seized by Somali pirates in November 2008 in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of east Africa and held until mid-January this year.

Now the company has fitted one of its multipurpose vessels, the "CEC Accord", with coils of razor wire, the kind of barbed wire used atop prison walls and fences and it aims to do the same with all its ships sailing in treacherous waters off Africa.

"The advantage of razor wire is that it is highly visible, the pirates will see it out there," said Gullestrup. "We want to create a system where the pirates won't even try to board the vessel."

Barbed wire is one of several defences -- from armed guards and water cannon to electric fencing and even devices that beam debilitating high-pitched noises at attackers -- that shipping companies are trying to keep pirates from boarding their ships.

"The simple solutions are often the best," said Gullestrup. "For about $1,500 or $2,000 we can equip our ship all the way around the perimeter with razor wire."

The wire can be put up and taken down by a few seamen in just a few hours, and it can be reattached the next time it is needed with simple household wire costing around $50, he said.

"It has proven to be so easy and economical that there is no excuse for not doing it," Gullestrup said. He added that Clipper Group was working with its insurers to see if barbed wire could help bring down soaring insurance premiums jacked up by piracy.

Above all, barbed wire can help delay attackers long enough for the navy to come to the rescue, Gullestrup said.

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