Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 04:57 pm GMT -4 | 
Planning on taking a trip around the Horn of Africa on a U.S. vessel anytime soon? Well if so (and I don’t know anyone other than maybe David Axe who would) you should expect to see a new surge of regulations imposed on these vessels by the U.S. Coast Guard. According to a Reuters story the USCG has enacted rules stating that vessels will now be required to have an approved security plan for the area and have a plan for posting guards; though it is up to the vessel owners if these guards will be armed (and why wouldn’t they be?) or not.
On Monday a revised Maritime Security Directive, highly anticipated by the shipping industry, was signed by ADM Allen. This is the second revision of said directive since it’s inception with the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2004. According to the Coast Guard press release from yesterday-
Vessel security plans for U.S. flagged vessels that operate in high risk waters must have security protocols for terrorism, piracy, and armed robbery against ships that meet the performance standards in this directive by May 25. An annex to the directive provides further specific measures required for vessels transiting in the Horn of Africa and Gulf of Aden high risk waters. All vessel security plans must be approved by the U.S. Coast Guard.
This is looking like a change that could have some serious repercussions for those in the piracy business. I hope the required guards are armed (and dangerous) as it wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense to post and unarmed century.
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