Cliff and I mentioned the Somalian pirates in Tuesday’s podcast.  It was breaking news at the time, and I couldn’t for the life of me see how they planned to ’steal’ one of the largest oil tankers in the world.

Since then I have watched with interest as the incident has unfolded.  After initially making a ‘run for it’ (well, as best you can in a vehicle weighing almost half a million tons) they have now decided to hold the ship and crew hostage, which makes them, officially, rubbish pirates.

I assume this change in tactics has something to do with their difficulty in shifting the two million barrels of oil.  Plus the ship itself.  It’s not like they could put an advert in Exchange & Mart.

“Hi, I’m call about the boat you have advertised.  How big is it.”

“A little over 40 feet.”

“How little?”

“Oh, about 1000 feet.”

If you are going to be a pirate, you have to think about your exit strategy.  If I were a pirate I would focus on ships transporting Xboxes and iPods.  That way, eBay is your friend.  It is difficult setting a Buy It Now price for a quarter of the worlds daily oil production.

I’ve also been wondering about why pirates are called pirates?  It’s quite a cool name if you think about it.  I imagine land based criminals who steal, kidnap and extort are a bit gutted they do not get romaticised as much as the parrot-fondling sea-farers.  So next time you read about an onland robbery, just have a little think about that poor criminals self-esteem issues before you condemn them.

oil · pirates · somalia · somalian pirates · tanker