As many as 25% of vessels passing through the Gulf of Aden have still not registered with MSCHOA (The Maritime Security Centre – Horn of Africa).

They have also not applied the Best Management Practices (BMPs), said
Captain Richard Farrington, chief of staff of the EU Naval Force, and
co-chairman of the Shared Awareness and De-confliction (SHADE)
mechanism.

He was updating a recent meeting of Working Group 1 of the UN/IMO’s
contact group on piracy off the Coast of Somalia (CGPCS) on the latest
operational achievements, development and planning of the international
anti-piracy operation in the Gulf of Aden, focusing on information
exchange, the internationally recommended transit corridor (IRTC) and
the IRTC military co-ordination guide.

Crucially, he pointed out that seven out of eight vessels hijacked
recently had not been reporting their movements to UKMTO (United
Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations) and not one of the eight was
registered with MSCHOA, although all were registered with flags that
had signed up to the BMPs. Out of 15,000 vessels with registered
transits, only two had been hijacked and one of these was not
implementing BMPs, he claimed.

Captain Howard Snaith, Intertanko’s marine director, stated at a public
conference in London this week that it was crucial that vessels passing
through this area register with MSCHOA and report to UKMTO and at the
same time implement BMPs.

He emphasised that the average pirate attack lasted only 11 minutes and
therefore that a policy of “detracting, deterring, delaying” by
implementing BMPs, reporting to UKMTO and registering with MSCHOA was
the most effective way of avoiding a hijacking situation.

Source: Tanker Operator

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