Mythbusters

 If you ask someone what a pirate is, they’re bound to use pirates of the Caribbean or The Flying Dutchman from SpongeBob as an example. But,  if you ask them about real pirates they will more than likely give a different answer. The perception of real pirates is that they sailed around, dominating the Caribbean hundreds of years ago, but they are still reaping much havoc on the seas today.

        

For example, the coast of Somalia has a big pirate problem. In 2010, 49 ships were hijacked off of the coast of Somalia with a grand total of 1,000 hostages being taken. In 2017, the Somali pirates overtook the oil tanker Aris 13. The media’s cover on this problem helped raise awareness that real-life pirates do not show many resemblances to how they are portrayed on the big screen. Piracy proves to still be a problem today.

The Somali pirates have caused over $794 million in economic losses to the West African coast as of 2017. The UN has had to increase anti-piracy patrols in this area because the piracy problem was getting out of hand.

More recent than that would be the targeting of a specific barge being pulled by the tug boat Kim Hock Tug 9. These pirates looted scrap metal from this barge twice in 5 hours. Although they did not come in contact with the crew members of the barge, who knows what would happen if they did.

Off of the coast of West Africa, eight crew members of a Greek oil tanker were taken hostage and held for more than 20 days, in December. Their ages ranged from 21-45 and included the ship’s captain. Luckily these men were returned in good health, but only after negotiations were made.

The idea of piracy being a problem isn’t being taken as seriously these days. Some countries will acknowledge piracy, but will not prioritize improving anti-piracy techniques, and this may be due to the romanticism of Pirates in literature.

Sources: 

Monks, Kieron. “Piracy Threat Returns to African Waters.” CNN, Cable News Network, 3 Jan. 2018, www.cnn.com/2017/05/25/africa/piracy-resurgence-somalia/index.html.

Clarke, Hilary. “Oil Tanker Hijacked off Somali Coast.” CNN, Cable News Network, 14 Mar. 2017, edition.cnn.com/2017/03/14/africa/somali-pirates-ship/.

Associated Press. “Pirates Release Captured Crew-Members of Greek Tanker ‘Happy Lady.’” The National Herald, 22 Jan. 2020, www.thenationalherald.com/281380/pirates-release-captured-crew-members-of-greek-tanker-happy-lady/.