A long time ago pirates would fly the jolly rodger & terrorize the high seas, it seems that the only thing that has changed is modern day pirates don’t fly the flag anymore & instead of cannons carry rocket propelled grenades. Over the past year piracy has taken off & many ships have been taken by pirates, the crew kept for randsom & some never seen again. The ships that are taken are mostly large vessels carrying precious cargo such as oil so its no suprise that goverments are sending out fleets of heavily armed war ships to deal with the problem. Kemps latest assignment this time around is to track down modern day pirates operating around the coast of Africa. Monday was the showing of the 1st in a 3 part series which will investigate the level of piracy & the reasons behind it. Just a few minutes into it ross interviews a pirate & is told by him that there are over 30 training camps specifically teaching the tactics to board & control huge ships, he even goes as far as to say the ones teaching them are former special forces. Kemp spends most of the episode aboard the HMS Northumberland with the royal navy. “Realistically, with the time we’ve got on board, do you think there’s any chance of bumping into pirates?” he asked the captain & then almost straight away they are hit with a high number of false alarms from various ships around the gulf of Aden. Soon after a cargo ship with a crew of 22 was seized by the pirates but there was nothing the navy could do about it except fly overhead & monitor the situation. Surprisingly the navy are only allowed to act if they chance upon pirates at the very moment they’re trying to board a ship. Once they’re on, they’re on, and that’s that. So with that the seized ship MV Saldanha made its way effortlessly past the British war ship & off to its new home in Somalia. The odds seem to be always stacked against them so when they did come across an abandoned pirate boat they tossed the munitions overboard & blew it out of the water with high powered guns. The situation of modern piracy seems more stressing than I had originally thought & I found the first episode to be very insightful however I’m looking forward more to see the next episode where he leaves the navy to track down & interview the pirates himself.
Wednesday 10 June 2009
Ross Kemp "in search of pirates" (episode 1)
A long time ago pirates would fly the jolly rodger & terrorize the high seas, it seems that the only thing that has changed is modern day pirates don’t fly the flag anymore & instead of cannons carry rocket propelled grenades. Over the past year piracy has taken off & many ships have been taken by pirates, the crew kept for randsom & some never seen again. The ships that are taken are mostly large vessels carrying precious cargo such as oil so its no suprise that goverments are sending out fleets of heavily armed war ships to deal with the problem. Kemps latest assignment this time around is to track down modern day pirates operating around the coast of Africa. Monday was the showing of the 1st in a 3 part series which will investigate the level of piracy & the reasons behind it. Just a few minutes into it ross interviews a pirate & is told by him that there are over 30 training camps specifically teaching the tactics to board & control huge ships, he even goes as far as to say the ones teaching them are former special forces. Kemp spends most of the episode aboard the HMS Northumberland with the royal navy. “Realistically, with the time we’ve got on board, do you think there’s any chance of bumping into pirates?” he asked the captain & then almost straight away they are hit with a high number of false alarms from various ships around the gulf of Aden. Soon after a cargo ship with a crew of 22 was seized by the pirates but there was nothing the navy could do about it except fly overhead & monitor the situation. Surprisingly the navy are only allowed to act if they chance upon pirates at the very moment they’re trying to board a ship. Once they’re on, they’re on, and that’s that. So with that the seized ship MV Saldanha made its way effortlessly past the British war ship & off to its new home in Somalia. The odds seem to be always stacked against them so when they did come across an abandoned pirate boat they tossed the munitions overboard & blew it out of the water with high powered guns. The situation of modern piracy seems more stressing than I had originally thought & I found the first episode to be very insightful however I’m looking forward more to see the next episode where he leaves the navy to track down & interview the pirates himself.
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