Richard Phillips: A Captain's Duty

I posted the standard procedures for a pirate attack in my night orders, which the mates read and put into practice. But that was just a paper reminder. I needed to see how the guys responded to a live-action threat. Salalah to Djibouti is a three-or four-day trip, but that first day, everyone is exhausted. A ship is like being in a womb: you have the water rushing by, making that gurgling sound, you have the rhythm of the engines, you have the whole ship vibrating to the turn of the screw. That’s why sailors love that first day at sea. You’ve left your troubles behind and you’ve entered this comforting world you know so well. But the bad thing is, you get lulled into a sense of safety. I didn’t want to crack down on the security lapses I’d seen until we were out on the bright blue. We were heading into the most dangerous waters in the world, and I wanted my ship to be ready.

The morning of April 2, I walked up to the bridge and grabbed my cup of coffee. The radar was clear. I looked over at Shane, the chief mate, who’d been up there since 4 a.m. We talked about our plans for the day, what kind of overtime was likely to be needed, what projects he was working on. Fairly quickly, the conversation turned to bullshitting about sports and the latest news. I’d told Shane before the trip began, “I’m going to start backing away on this run. You’re going to step up and do more: overtime budgets, maintenance, safety and emergency stuff. You’ve already shown me you can do it.” He was on his way to being a captain and I knew he was ready for more responsibility.

After a few minutes, I said, “We’re running an unannounced security drill today.”

A chief mate is by far the hardest-working man on a ship. He’s running around fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, and a security drill just makes his life more complicated.

Most mates would say, “Damn it, Cap, do we have to?” But Shane was different. “Great, I love unannounced drills,” he said. Music to my ears.

“Eat your breakfast and we’ll do it at 9 a.m.,” I said. “You won’t finish any work today, but we have to do this.”

“We’re ready,” he said. “Let’s—”

“Don’t tell me what you’re going to do,” I said. “Let’s just see how we perform.”

At two minutes to nine, I climbed up to the bridge. My third mate, Colin Wright, was there with an AB. I walked up to him and said, “There’s a boat coming along, starboard side. Four men, with weapons, acting hostile.” It was the start of the security drill.

He looked at me.

“Ohhhkay,” he said.

I waited. He was just looking at me. “Well, you’ve got to do something,” I said.

“Oh! Okay,” Colin said. And he rang the general alarm, which sounds all over the ship.

“No, we don’t want to do the general alarm first,” I explained. “We want to do the whistle first.” You want the pirates to know you’re aware of them and are getting ready to defend yourself. The general alarm rings only inside the ship, while the whistle can be heard up to five miles away.

Colin sounded the whistle. I watched the crew swing into action. Each man had a muster point that he was supposed to run to; about half of them were heading the wrong way. Not good.

“Fire pump,” I called.

“Right,” Colin answered. On a ship like the Maersk Alabama, you have probably thirty-five fire stations with hoses and nozzles. But the pirate hoses are specially placed to repel an attack. These five hoses—three on the stern and two facing back aft—are secured into position and left in the “On” position so that you can hit the pump switch from the bridge and boom, you’re shooting water. You want to be able to control the fire hoses from the bridge during a pirate attack. Not only is it impossible for the pirates to advance up a ladder when that stream is hitting them full force, but the fact that the hoses are going full blast tells the intruders that we’re ready for them, even if they’re miles away.

When Colin hit the button, however, nothing happened. It turned out a valve on the fire pump had been left open, which meant no water could flow to the hoses.

An absent-minded able-bodied seaman was on the bridge, just standing there looking like he’d lost his dog. He needed to know the correct routines, as well, so I started going over them with him.

“We’re under attack by pirates,” I said. “What are you supposed to do?”

He looked at me. “I’m…supposed…to…,” he said slowly.

“You’re supposed to give the security signal first.”

Sounding the proper signal takes the right touch; you’ve really got to accentuate the horn or it’s going to sound like “abandon ship” or another call. And this man could never do it. It always sounded like he was playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” on the thing. Another foul-up. I ordered him to hit the fire pump, which has a red “off” button and a green “on” button. Of course, he pushed red and walked away. “No,” I said. “You have to push green and then check to make sure it’s flowing.”

“Got it,” he said.

No you don’t, I wanted to reply.

Next I sent the AB to lock the three bridge doors. If the pirates board the ship, all the key access points—engine room, bridge—should be locked. You want to prevent the pirates from gaining control of the ship. Because once they do, they can set course for the coast of Somalia, where there’s no police presence, and stuff you into a safe house where Jack Bauer himself would never find you. Then they could sell you to the highest bidder, like Al Qaeda.

That was my deepest fear, and I knew it rattled my entire crew. To end up in some stinking hole with a blindfold on, chained to a post like an animal and at the mercy of fundamentalist militants, is the worst fate imaginable. Every one of us worried about being the next Daniel Pearl.

The AB ran off the bridge. Colin was doing all the right things. He’d switched the ship’s radio to VHF, he’d hit the lights, he’d gotten the fire pump going, and he’d begun simulating evasive maneuvers.

“What’s the nonduress password?” I called out. That would let anyone inside a locked door know the mate on the other side of the door didn’t have a gun to his head.

“Mr. Jones,” he said.

Wrong. “Mr. Jones,” in fact, was the code for the SSA, or secret security alarm, which is a button the captain presses in the case of an emergency, instantly patching him via satellite to a rescue center manned around the clock. The agent there asks a question, “Is Mr. Jones there?” If you answer “no,” you’re not under threat and the agent will debrief you on the situation. If you answer “yes,” you have an AK-47 at your back and the agent will break off contact because he knows you can’t answer freely.

It is like the president’s nuclear code. The third mate wasn’t even supposed to know it.

“Not even close,” I said. “It’s ‘suppertime.’”

Colin winced. We clearly had our work cut out for us.

Meanwhile, the AB arrived back on the bridge. He’d been tasked with closing the three bridge doors, which should have taken about twenty seconds. He’d been gone five minutes.

“Where’ve you been?” I already knew the answer.

“I went to close the doors.”

“Which doors did you close?”

“Every door on every level.”

“Did they have locks on them, these doors?”

“Ah,” he said. “No.”

The whole purpose of locking doors is to isolate decks against penetration by the intruders, to create safe zones where the crew can move in case their hiding places are breached. Unlocked doors don’t offer much of a safe zone.

“So you were closing the doors, not locking them?”