A Captain's Duty

Salem to the far reaches of the world, from Cádiz to the Antarctic, carrying everything from molasses, gunpowder, gold dust, Chinese silk, to, of course, African slaves. The merchant marine always got there first—Java, Sumatra, Fiji. We blazed the trails across the oceans. The navy followed us. That’s what you learned at the MMA.
    But it wasn’t all history. Seniors would ship out on commercial vessels and come back, their pockets bulging with money, and tell us stories about the stunning women in Venezuela or a brawl in Tokyo that destroyed an entire bar. Pirates were always lurking in these stories, as newly minted captains would gossip about how bad the Strait of Malacca had gotten or the best way to fight off bandits in Colombia. These guys made every trip sound like it was straight out of Robert Louis Stevenson.
    I was dying to get out there and see it all for myself.

THREE
-7 Days
    The industry believes very strongly that it’s not for the companies to train crews to use firearms and then arm them…. If you open fire, there’s potential for retaliation. Crews could get injured or killed, to say nothing of damage to the ship.
    —Giles Noakes, chief maritime security officer for BIMCO, an international association of ship owners Christian Science Monitor, April 8
    T he first day out of Salalah went smoothly. We were making good time down the east coast of the Arabian peninsula headed for the Gulf of Aden. So far, it was a normal run. I hoped it stayed that way.
    I posted the standard procedures for a pirate attack in my night orders, which the mates read and put into practice. But that was just a paper reminder. I needed to see how the guys responded to a live-action threat. Salalah to Djibouti is a three-or four-day trip, but that first day, everyone is exhausted. A ship is like being in a womb: you have the water rushing by,making that gurgling sound, you have the rhythm of the engines, you have the whole ship vibrating to the turn of the screw. That’s why sailors love that first day at sea. You’ve left your troubles behind and you’ve entered this comforting world you know so well. But the bad thing is, you get lulled into a sense of safety. I didn’t want to crack down on the security lapses I’d seen until we were out on the bright blue. We were heading into the most dangerous waters in the world, and I wanted my ship to be ready.
    The morning of April 2, I walked up to the bridge and grabbed my cup of coffee. The radar was clear. I looked over at Shane, the chief mate, who’d been up there since 4 a.m. We talked about our plans for the day, what kind of overtime was likely to be needed, what projects he was working on. Fairly quickly, the conversation turned to bullshitting about sports and the latest news. I’d told Shane before the trip began, “I’m going to start backing away on this run. You’re going to step up and do more: overtime budgets, maintenance, safety and emergency stuff. You’ve already shown me you can do it.” He was on his way to being a captain and I knew he was ready for more responsibility.
    After a few minutes, I said, “We’re running an unannounced security drill today.”
    A chief mate is by far the hardest-working man on a ship. He’s running around fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, and a security drill just makes his life more complicated.
    Most mates would say, “Damn it, Cap, do we have to?” But Shane was different. “Great, I love unannounced drills,” he said. Music to my ears.
    “Eat your breakfast and we’ll do it at 9 a.m.,” I said. “You won’t finish any work today, but we have to do this.”
    “We’re ready,” he said. “Let’s—”
    “Don’t tell me what you’re going to do,” I said. “Let’s just see how we perform.”
    At two minutes to nine, I climbed up to the bridge. My third mate, Colin Wright, was there with an AB. I walked up to him and said, “There’s a boat coming along, starboard side. Four men, with weapons, acting hostile.” It was the start of the security drill.
    He looked at me.
    “Ohhhkay,” he said.
    I waited. He was just looking at me. “Well, you’ve got to do something,” I said.
    “Oh! Okay,” Colin said. And he rang the general alarm, which sounds all over the ship.
    “No, we don’t want to do the general alarm first,” I explained. “We want to do the whistle first.” You want the pirates to know you’re aware of them and are getting ready to defend yourself. The