Capt. Richard Phillips, master of the Maersk Alabama who’s been held hostage since Wednesday, was rescued late this morning Eastern time.  It’s been reported that when the pirates were sleeping or otherwise unaware, he made another attempt to escape and jumped overboard, at which point the Navy was able to neutralize the pirates.  Of the four pirates holding him hostage, 3 were shot and killed by Navy snipers, and 1 is currently in custody on board a U.S. Navy vessel.

Everyone in the maritime community is thrilled with the positive outcome.  The Academy will be having public celebrations of his release and of the safe return of the crew.  I’ll be posting about updates to this as it happens.

The recent turn of events for the Maersk Alabama has had an interesting and prominent connection to Mass Maritime.  As I reported in my last post, both the captain and the Chief Mate on board that ship are Academy graduates, as well as the mate being the son of one of our professors, Capt. Joseph Murphy.

Since Capt. Murphy is both closely tied to the situation and an experienced and well-known mariner himself, the news media has gravitated to him for answers like flies on butter at a picnic.  Since early yesterday afternoon, they have been interviewing him continuously as new information was received about the situation on board the Alabama.  During my last class yesterday around 2 PM, there were about 6 or 7 TV trucks parked on campus broadcasting, as well as reporters from radio stations and newspapers around the area.  When I came back to campus after being out last night, there were still a few news trucks at 11 PM.  This morning, there were news crews here already setting up and filming during morning formation.  As the day has gone on, crews have been filing back on to campus and setting up to resume their coverage with Capt. Murphy right here from MMA.

After lunch today I walked down towards Blinn Hall and the canal, where most of the trucks were parked, to take a look at the commotion.  I managed to snap a few pictures of the scene.

These are a few of the news trucks on campus today.  These particular ones arrived shortly before lunch, apparently to get footage in time for the noon news broadcasts.

Shown here is Capt. Murphy speaking with news crews before doing an on-camera interview.  Click on the picture to get more details.

Everyone here at MMA has been concerned for the crew of the Alabama & their families, and are hopeful that this will end peacefully.  It was a relief to hear that the ship was underway again with a sizeable security force on board, headed for Kenya.  Still, seeing familiar names and images of places around campus on national news networks has been an odd & exciting sensation.  There was a lot of pride and positive energy around campus when we heard that Mass Maritime graduates successfully retook their ship from pirates.  This has certainly been an unusual couple of days.

If you’d like to see the rest of the pictures I took this afternoon, you can view them on Flickr.

For those who may not have heard yet, or do not have full details, the American-flagged ship Maersk Alabama was hijacked early this morning off the coast of Somalia by pirates.  The ship carries a crew of approximately 20 American citizens, of which are graduates of Massachusetts Maritime Academy.  The Chief Mate aboard the ship, Shane Murphy, is a 2001 graduate as well as the son of Capt. Joseph Murphy, a professor here at the academy and very prominent figure in the maritime industry for his contributions to education and safety at sea.

Here are the highlights of the situation, up to this point:

• The ship was attacked by pirates early this morning, which the ship’s crew tried to fight off for about 5 hours
• Once unsuccessful at repelling the pirates, they locked themselves in the steering gear room of the vessel, effectively hiding from the pirates
• The crew managed to overpower one of the four pirates aboard, taking him as their own prisoner.
• The remaining pirates took the master of the vessel, Capt. Richard Phillips (also a graduate of MMA), as prisoner and retreated from the vessel using a lifeboat from the ship, and taking Capt. Phillips with them
• The crew of the Alabama negotiated a release agreement, to hand over the pirate they captured in exchange for their captain.  The crew provided the captured pirate, but the other pirates reneged on the deal and kept Capt. Phillips hostage.
• The crew has been attempting to negotiate the release of the captain using any other means aboard the vessel, such as food, with no success.
• The U.S. Navy was alerted of the incident when it happened, and has dispatched a destroyer, the USS Bainbridge, to aid the Maersk Alabama.  They were more than 200 miles from the Alabama when they received the distress call.  They have since arrived at the Somalian coast, where the captain is being held.

There is no word yet on the status of the captain, but earlier today the Second Mate on board the Alabama said that the captain had a ship’s radio with him and was maintaining contact with his crew.  Shane Murphy is currently commanding the vessel.

Capt. John Konrad over at gCaptain has been maintaining an excellent live blog post with updates to the situation.  You can find that post here.

As a result of Capt. Murphy’s son being on board the ship, Mass Maritime’s campus has been flooded with media crews today, interviewing Capt. Murphy and doing live reports from campus.  A number of cadets were either interviewed or shown in footage aired on TV, which is said to be airing on Good Morning America (and possibly other shows) tomorrow.  Keep an eye out for that, as well as new developments to this story.

Please keep the crew and their families in your thoughts as they go through this ordeal.

As most people are fully aware, piracy has become a major issue recently, particularly off the coast of Africa.  Numerous merchant vessels have been attacked and hijacked, left vulnerable to these attacks by crews that are at a disadvantage from lack of effective defenses.

Mass Maritime has recognized this problem, and yesterday gave training to 6 cadets, with the help of the Bourne Police Department, in handgun firing.  The Cape Cod Times has the full story, which you can find at their web site.

Voice your opinion: should merchant vessels carry firearms on board to defend against pirates?  Should this become a required part of licensing?  How does this fit into merchant mariner training?  Leave your comments below.

Merry Christmas to everyone!

As we speak, Sea Term 2009 officially begins in 1 week, 3 days and change.  I’ve added a countdown timer on the sidebar right below my picture which currently displays the up-to-the-second count until the official start of Sea Term.

I’ll be continuing my pre-Sea Term info posts tomorrow.

I’m starting a new blog in addition to this one, called MariTalk.  It’s a collaborative blog aimed at providing news and information from maritime academies, as well as the maritime industry from the prospective of academy cadets and students.

So far, I’m the only blogger on it.  I’m looking for people who are interested in being part of this, so if you’re a cadet at any of the maritime academies and would like to do some writing and/or podcasting (yes, there will be a podcast as well), contact me and let me know.

I’m hoping to turn this into a valuable and integral part of the maritime industry’s social media and web presence, so please take a look, subscribe, and help me get the word out.

Captain Tom Bushy, master of Mass Maritime’s T.S. Kennedy, will be appearing on WGBH’s program “Greater Boston” tonight at 7pm to discuss the piracy problems off the coast of Somalia, and to provide some insight into life aboard large commercial ships.

If you miss the show, I will try to get a copy of it posted here.

I’ve received a number of e-mails and a Skribit suggestion in response to my SPOT review asking how much it costs.  I decided I’d just make another post to address this, rather than answer all the individual requests.  Here’s how the pricing breaks down:

Basic Service: $99.99/year
This provides check-in (send “I’m OK” messages to people you pre-select along with your location), help requests (non emergency) and 911 requests.  You get unlimited usage of these services for this fee.  In order to use SPOT at all, you have to at least purchase Basic Service.

Tracking: $49.99/year
This is an additional feature on top of Basic Service.  This allows you to keep a “breadcrumb trail” as I discussed in my review.  In Tracking mode, the device will send a position update to the SPOT system every 10 minutes, which you can go back later and look at in your account control panel.  This also provides public Shared pages, which allow you to share your tracking with other people on publicly viewable pages.  Each page has a 500 views-per-day limit as of this writing, but don’t worry: you can create multiple public pages, and even password protect a page if you want.  I make use of this by having a general public page at spot.cconover.com, but I also have a password-protected page for my family so that they’ll always have a page they can see, without having to worry about exceeding the view count.

Search & Rescue: $7.95/year up front, $150/year each subsequent year
The pricing on this one may seem a little confusing.  Basically, you have the option to purchase this service when you first activate your SPOT.  If you do this, then you’ll only pay $7.95 for this for the first year.  Every year after that, it will be $150 per year.  So what does this buy you?  SPOT has partnered with GEOS, who provide private search & rescue services worldwide.  For this yearly fee, you’ll receive up to $100,000 of search & rescue services when you hit that 911 button.  This will cover not only the cost of the private SAR services from GEOS, but fees incurred from any public/official SAR agency for which you may be responsible.  It’s also nice if you spend a lot of time in places where public SAR agencies may be poor or non-existant.  I would think that this wouldn’t be as important for mariners who transit the waters of developed nations where public SAR services are very good, such as the Coast Guard.  However, in areas that don’t have such organizations, this may prove to be vital.

SPOT has a page on their web site that covers pricing if you want to see it there.

What services would/do you use if you got/have a SPOT?

I recently received a SPOT Satellite Personal Tracker as part of a contest run on gCaptain.  For those of you unfamiliar with the device, it’s a GPS antenna and commercial satellite transmitter integrated inside of a handheld case, with a few different functions thrown into the mix.  You can use it to track your location throughout the world, send assistance requests, as well as distress and emergency calls.  For more detailed information, check out the SPOT web site, and perhaps watch the video they have featured on their home page.  This device is an excellent companion for any mariner, and is pretty affordable for what it does.

First Impressions
The first thing you’ll notice about the SPOT is the box it comes in.  That may sound a little obvious and stupid, but take a look at it and you’ll see what I mean:

The box is heavy on bright orange and photographs of dangerous situations.  The company’s slogan, “Live to tell about it” is emblazoned all over the box.  It’s certainly eye-catching, and immediately gives the consumer the impression that the company wants: this device is crucial to saving your life.

Once you open the box, it’s more of the same: flashy catch phrases and bright colors, all pointing to the same concept.  This was my favorite phrase on the box:

It’s not my favorite because of the unpleasant image it conveys, or because it’s sort of cleverly worded, but because of its bluntness: use the SPOT, and you probably won’t die.  I actually find it a little funny.

Once you finally get inside the box, you find the SPOT.  It’s about the size of a regular point-and-shoot digital camera, and about twice as thick.  When you take it out of the box, the first thing you notice is the rugged case.  This this is obviously meant to take a beating.  It’s made out of hard plastic, with a big rubber surround and grip.

As you can see from the pictures, my unit has already gotten a few bumps and scratches.  I’ve dropped it on concrete, left it out in the rain, and it doesn’t even seem to notice.  It is definitely a solidly built product, capable of going where it’s intended.

The unit sits well in your hand as well (not that it spends much time there, since there isn’t a screen).  The rubber grips on the sides do a good job of making sure it won’t slip out of your hand.  If it does slip and fall overboard however, you don’t need to worry too much since it floats:

Unfortunately, it seems that it doesn’t like to stay upright for very long.  So, if you happen to be sending a distress call and it falls in the water, it may not be able to keep sending that signal until you recover it and aim it back toward the sky.

Once I got it assembled and activated it on the SPOT web site, it was time to test it out.

Using SPOT
The unit is incredibly simple to use.  To turn it on, just press the “On/Off” button so that the LED blinks.  You have to let it sit for a few seconds after you turn it on before you can use other functions.  Once it’s ready, just press a function button (there are only 3) based on what you want it to do.  The manual explains the specifics on how to do it, so I don’t feel like I need to go into them here.

Put it in a place where it will have a clear view of the sky, and then just let it go to work.  I usually use it in tracking mode.  When this feature is on, it sends a GPS position to the SPOT system via satellite every 10 minutes.  You can then go back and look at your “breadcrumb trail” later in your account control panel, or if you have Shared pages, other people can see it in real time.  I have this feature enabled for mine.  You can find my public page by going to spot.cconover.com, or by clicking on the SPOT logo on the right sidebar on my blog.

The GPS appears to be very accurate, often pinpointing you down to the parking space or dock slip you’re in. Sometimes the data is a few meters off, which you really only notice when you have it tracking while you’re in one spot for an extended period of time as you’ll have a number of points in a cluster around the spot where you actually are.  That said, for the most part it’s right on target.

The SPOT satellite network is very reliable as well.  When in tracking mode, the unit will transmit your position every 10 minutes.  Even when traveling in urban areas it manages to successfully send the data almost every time.  This is particularly handy for me, since I have an 8 hour drive between school and my house, traveling through many urban areas.  It’s very nice for my parents to be able to hop online and see where I am at any point during my trip instead of having to call me.

The worldwide coverage of the SPOT network is very good as well.  This will be especially nice for Sea Term this year so that friends and family will be able to track us throughout the trip and see exactly where we are.  For individual use it’s good for the recreational boater who may not have an EPIRB, or can’t get a cell phone or VHF signal.

Battery life on the SPOT is very good as well.  The manual says that it can send up to 1900 messages on a set of batteries, which if you ran the tracking feature continuously 24/7 would give you about 2 weeks of tracking.  The device does require Lithium batteries, and they make sure you know that by writing it everywhere they can find on the back of the device.  Lithium batteries are non-rechargeable (unlike their lithium-ion counterparts in cell phones and digital cameras), and are more expensive than regular alkaline batteries.   However, they’re not that much more expensive, and last significantly longer, as well as being more resistant to damage from harsh climates.  I’ve used mine almost every time I drive anywhere and it’s still running strong on the original set of batteries.

So far I’ve been impressed with the SPOT’s performance.  I’m eager to see how it does out at sea in a couple of months, and until then I’m going to keep using it in various conditions to see how it does.

Have you used a SPOT, and if so what’s been your experience?  If not, would you consider getting one?

On a whim, I happened to look up Mass Maritime on Google Maps tonight, and discovered that they have recently updated their imagery of this area.  You can now see the addition built on top of the 1st and 2nd company dorms, as well as the 81kW solar array on top of the addition.  The windmill is also clearly visible, along with the new turf field.

Check out the new satellite imagery of Mass Maritime