Maersk e-mail shows tense standoff, resourceful crew, “desperate” pirates
By GRAHAM RAYMAN
The crew of the M/V Maersk Alabama acted quickly to take
control of key areas of the vessel after Somali pirates attacked on
April 8, according to a crewmember’s account obtained by the Village Voice, The Pitch”s sister publication.
The insider’s e-mailed account of the initial day of the drama offers
details that have been somewhat overlooked in the articles about the U.S. Navy rescue of the ship’s captain, Richard Phillips, after four days as a hostage.
The crewmember tells friends that by the time the pirates had
commandeered the bridge, the chief engineer and two other crewmen had
taken control of the engine and steering rooms.
The pirates initially captured the captain and three
crewmembers on the unsecured bridge. But the rest of the crew was able
to flee to the relative safety of the lower parts of the vessel.
“We kept swinging the rudder side to side,” the crewman says.
“The pirates’ boat capsized … after about 20 minutes, the engine was
killed, I don’t know by whom. At that point I shut off the air bottles
and Mike [the chief engineer] killed power. He was also able to get
outside and trip the fuel shutoff for the EDG [emergency generator].”
Once the power was out, the interior of the ship was pitch black.
“The pirates were very reluctant to go into the dark,” the crewman says.
The crew retreated into the area where the huge steering mechanisms are housed, and locked the door.
“Our pirates didn’t have any grenades, so they never would have
been able to break in there,” he writes. “The only problem was the heat
and the shortage of water.”
The crew created a makeshift water source from a line to the
engine room water fountain and some empty oil containers. They snuck
into the galley and obtained fruit and soda.
Meanwhile, the pirates made a series of mistakes.
They allowed the third mate to search for crew without an escort. The
chief engineer jumped a lone pirate who was also sent to look for other
hostages, and took him prisoner. (Reportedly the pirate was stabbed in
the hand with an icepick.)
“No one else came into the engine room,” he says. “As the day went on, the pirates became desperate to get out of there.”
The captain convinced the pirates to use a small boat aboard the
vessel. But that boat wouldn’t start. Two crewmembers then dropped a
lifeboat into the water and the pirates moved over to that, with some
provisions from the crew.
The two sides had negotiated a trade: the captain for the
hostage pirate. But at the last minute, the pirates welched on the
deal. They left with the captain on the lifeboat.
The crew then re-started the vessel and trailed after the pirates for several hours.
“The Navy asked us to head out,” the crewman writes. “I heard that
several other pirate vessels were heading our way and the Navy wanted
us out of the way.”
The message, which was written before Navy snipers killed three pirates
with three headshots, closes with a hopeful note about the fate of
their captain:
“They have to know that if they kill him, they’ll be done,” he writes.
“I assume the company will be forced into taking some kind of action to
assure our security from now on.”
