 Employees of Samsung Heavy Industries test the company's newly-developed water cannon, which is to be installed on vessels to help them better defend themselves fromm pirates. / Courtesy of Samsung Heavy Industries |
By Kim Tae-gyu
Samsung Heavy Industries, one of Korea’s foremost shipyards, has developed a system, which it says will protect vessels from the threat of pirates through the use of cutting-edge technologies.
The Seoul-based outfit said Sunday that the dedicated system is composed of three platforms to help vessel operators easily detect pirates and evade them without external assistance.
``This is the first-ever tailor-made product geared toward allowing vessels to escape or deal with the risks posed by pirates. We started to work on it early last year at the request of our buyers,’’ Samsung Heavy spokesman Lee Hong-yuen said.
``We are currently carrying out pilot runs. After checking commercial viability, we are set to market the unprecedented system this year for both new ships and existing ones.
Conventional radars just show the locations of nearby vessels. But Samsung’s new system embraces state-of-the-art facilities, which come up with detailed data on objects within a radius of 10 kilometers such as their distance, speed and direction.
When the embedded software detects an abnormality of any objects on the radar, it is poised to notify sailors on a real-time basis as well as trailing the suspicious objects through satellite-empowered location information.
When any suspicious object approaches the vessel, the second part of the system operates ― the high-definition maritime cameras, which demonstrate what the vessels are going to do.
The device, called night vision, can work around the clock since it also enables the operating team to keep an eye on nearby ships through infrared during the night.
If sailors fail to give their pursuers the slip through the above-mentioned features, the last resort is water cannons similar to those used against violent street protestors.
The system will accommodate at least six water cannons around the vessel, which can achieve pressure of up to 10 bars, strong enough to keep pirates from climbing up onto the vessels.
``Many have adopted water cannons after the threats of pirates began. Yet, most of them have to be manually controlled on the deck, thus making operators vulnerable to gunfire,’’ Lee said.
``In comparison, our system lets crewmen remotely control water cannons safely from places such as the wheelhouse.’’
Samsung Heavy armed a local transport ship with the system for a test run. The company expects great demand for the product, whose price is expected to be in the vicinity of $300,000.
The hijacking of vessels has surfaced as a major international problem, especially in the Indian Ocean where around 10,000 ships sail every year ― South Korean vessels have also been seized there several times over the past decade.
Most recently, the Samho Jewelry was seized but the Navy commandos raided the 11,500-ton chemical carrier late last week to free the freighter and rescue the crew.
