Ship Security Analysis: The Effect of Ship Speed and Effective Lookout

The threat of piracy to commercial shipping is a concern for the protection and safeguarding of human lives, property and environment. Therefore, ships under piracy threat should follow security measures suggested by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somali. It is, therefore, important to choose the proper security measures for the right situation. This study presents a simulation model that can be used for probabilistic risk assessments regarding the operation of commercial ships. This investigation specifically studies the pirate approach phase and quantifies the effect of ship speed and effective lookout. The purpose of introducing probabilistic risk assessment into the analysis of pirate attacks is to meet safety goals more effectively through a well-balanced combination of proactive and reactive measures whilst keeping focus on the intended over all purpose of the particular ship. The study presents collected and documented knowledge regarding pirate capability, intention and likelihood to perform attacks. The knowledge is collected from experts with experience from the situation off the Horn of Africa. The collected information is input to an influence analysis that identifies the network of influences that govern the skiff approach. The simulation model describes piracy characteristics and decision making on the threatened ship, the characteristics and countermeasures of the ship under attack, as well as weather. Based on a comparison with available statistics the overall conclusion of the work is that the threat analysis and the simulation model can quantify and explain how the studied risk control options affect the probability of a successful approach. The result therefore exemplifies how a quantified ship security analysis can support the recommendations in industry guidelines and also enable recommendations that to a greater extent can facilitate an educated decision by the ship operators.