Air Cannon Ties Pirates In Knots

Hugh Pickens writes "Numerous high-tech devices have been proposed to help ships cope with piracy on the high seas. Now a company has developed a ship-borne launching device that fires a net or coiled rope into the path of pirate vessels using compressed air with a range of up to a range of 400m. The payload net or rope, which has a parachute attached to the end, will unravel and lay out across the surface of the water so that as the pirate boat travels through the water its propeller shaft will pick up the line and become entangled. 'With the trials and testing we've done, it has taken us some 45 minutes to cut and disentangle the line from the propeller itself,' says Jonathan Delf. 'Within that time of course, the target ship is on its way and hopefully help has arrived in the form of naval forces or helicopter support.' The system can be fired up to five times off just a cylinder of air like a simple scuba tank." The video mentions that the device can also fire a payload of golf balls. The systems have recently been sold to "several large shipping companies that travel near the oil-rich Nigerian Delta, which, like the Somalian coast, is rife with piracy."

Comments

Re:A few items to consider first

[CodeBuster]

I doubt that there would be too many questions; nobody is really interested in taking the side of the pirates in all of this. As for the pirates being better armed that is not necessarily true. The pirates are armed with AK-47s and RPGs and they are firing from rolling and pitching small boats. Their accuracy with a crappy AK-47 (probably with a worn out barrel and worn parts) or even a decent one is going to be terrible until they are right on top of the merchant vessels. If the merchant vessels are equiped with heavy machine guns firing from a much more stable platform (i.e. the rail of the merchant vessel) AND with longer range and more stopping power it is the pirates who will be at a disadvantage. It would also not be too difficult to mount a couple of 5 inch deck guns to discourage any larger pirate vessels from joining the fight. All of this was common practice during WWII for example.

Re:Why not just find PORTS

[Shakrai]

Random? What nations have we "randomly" attacked? You are entitled to take issue with our foreign policy but you aren't entitled to make shit up.

Afghanistan: Attacked because their Government harbored a terrorist organization that murdered 3,000 innocent people
Iraq: Attacked because they spent a decade flaunting international law.

You may disagree with one or both of those actions but it's painfully obvious that neither was "random". I find it interesting and a tad bit hypocritical that you condemn the United States but ignore the other countries that fought alongside us.

In any event, the topic at hand is piracy. The point that I was making was that the United States is not the only nation that's willing to use deadly force to protect it's citizens. The French have actually taken bolder action and killed more pirates than we have. Why don't you direct some of your bile at them?