Clay Maitland

On a quest for quality in shipping

Movement on the ground, at last?

Like that wonderful nonsense song, “Yes, We Have No Bananas”, international anti-piracy policy has had its internal contradictions. It has often been recognized that piracy off Somalia could not be defeated without an improvement in national security in the Horn of Africa’s most chaotic nation. Continue reading

Maritime TV – Piracy and armed guards

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The silence of the lambs

In what Britons call a leader, and what we Yanks call an editorial, I have been somewhat taken to task by Lloyd’s List. On March 22nd, the leader’s author “take[s] exception” to my statement, made at CMA in Connecticut, that industry trade associations have been strangely silent when it came to positive measures that could be taken against the spread of piracy. Interestingly, in another leader (editorial) five days later, Lloyd’s List seemed to acknowledge the force of my comments. Continue reading

Changing the Rules of Engagement

Piracy is expanding to West Africa; nine attacks were reported in February, double the number in the month before. Piracy is also well-entrenched in Southeast Asia, which recorded 31.5% of all incidents worldwide over the past twelve months to the end of January. Continue reading

Piracy panel debate at CMA

Collateral damage

It is a tragedy, of course it is. A pair of Indian fishermen working aboard their little craft did not deserve to be shot dead by armed security guards on an Italian tanker. Continue reading

Somalian militants and pirates – can one cure fix all?

There is growing evidence that the American campaign against Somali “militants” – the current term applied by the great and the good to all sorts of thugs – is having an impact on anti-piracy countermeasures. Continue reading

Piracy:Will we ever find a solution?

We have inveighed against the tendency in our industry, to keep repeating: “Something must be done about piracy”, without getting specific about what that “something” is. Continue reading

What do oil spills, piracy and the Greek crisis have in common?

There are at least three “received truths”, as one of my college professors sarcastically called them, that, in the world of shipping, may be open to challenge. One is that last year’s Gulf of Mexico oil rig explosion had nothing to do with the rest of the shipping industry, being only about wells and rigs — and not ships Continue reading

Uncertain guidelines in a shadowy world

The recent release of four employees of Protection Vessels International, after nearly six months’ detention in Eritrea, together with the imprisonment of six persons — American, Kenyan and British citizens — in Somalia, convicted of illegally bringing ransom money into the country, shows the risks that are run by those offering anti-piracy services. Continue reading

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