A GROUP of professional soldiers that has gained notoriety for its involvement in conflicts all over the world is setting up a business to train ship crews to defend their vessels from pirates.
But the plan by Sandline International - which operated from a suite at the Peninsula Hotel in 1997 during a botched coup attempt in Papua New Guinea - for unarmed combat training has met with a mixed response from the shipping industry in the region.
Ship owner Alan Chan, of Petroships Ltd in Singapore, rejected Sandline's proposal. 'Crew is crew,' he says. 'They are not meant to be engaged in combat. But certain measures could be upgraded.' Mr Chan favours other forms of security on ships, such as anti-scaling devices, spotlighting and pepper spray.
Captain Duncan Telser of the China Navigation Co Ltd also rejects the idea.
'The best prevention is not to get into a combat situation,' he said. 'Keep accommodation locked up, sound the alarm, put the lights on as this often scares them off. You double up the watches of the people on board and travel through risky areas during daylight.' Retired Lieutenant-Colonel Nigel Collett - who runs Gurkha International Manpower Services, a security service based in Hong Kong consisting mainly of Nepalese former members of British forces - argues that sailors are too busy working to provide protection at the same time.
'It's not really that feasible,' he said. 'If you're going to do a job you've got to have people who can watch 360 degrees around a ship. Each person on the ship already has a specific function. You can't relieve them of their duties to provide security.' The number of attacks by pirates has more than doubled worldwide over the past nine years, from 107 in 1991 to 285 last year. More than 90 per cent of the attacks occurred in Asia.
