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

Defective Solution in Search of a Problem

[reporter]

If I commandeered a shipping vessel and if I had a choice between (1) some flying rope that can be shot out of an air cannon and (2) on-board artillery like a machine gun (or something that can blast a hole in an on-coming vessel), I would rather choose the artillery. The problem with this flying rope is that it might enrage the pirate, and he might aim his artillery at you and also signal for assistance. If his comrades arrive at the scene, then your flying rope will not stop the thugs from putting a bullet in your head.

Also, this flying rope reminds me of the spider wires that the air force dropped onto the electrical-power plants of Serbia during the NATO action against that country in 1999. The spider wires short-circuited the power plants and cut off power to the parts of the city for hours. The aim was to avoid hurting the civilians (because NATO wants their support) and, specifically, to avoid damaging the civilian infrastructure.

Sometimes, being nice works (e. g., in the case of the NATO action against Serbia), but sometimes being nice does not work. The pirates are not innocent civilians but are hardened criminals. Pirates should be killed , not protected from a military assault by the French Navy.

Not surprisingly, this flying rope appears to be the product of British engineering. The French military, under President Nicolas Sarkozy, is not likely to develop such a "nice", "let-us-be-friends" weapon: Sarkozy is the toughest, most pro-Western leader to appear in Old Europe in the last 50 years.