Piracy, Live at Sea

[Image: A screen-grab of the Live Piracy Map].

With all the talk of piracy at sea, it was only a matter of time before the Live Piracy Map was developed. According to its creators, the map "shows all the piracy and armed robbery incidents reported to the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre during 2008."
It's the geography of aquatic crime, mapping realtime adventures in buoyant larceny.

[Image: From the Live Piracy Map].

This incident report corresponds to the map, above. The report describes the attempted hijacking of a chemical tanker:

Two white hull boats with several persons onboard approached aggressively a chemical tanker underway with intent to board. Master raised alarm, increased speed, took evasive manoeuvres and contacted coalition forces. SSAS activated and crew mustered. The boats keep on following and at 0700 UTC, the boats aborted the attempt.

These incident reports should be rewritten and assembled somewhere to form a new minor literature of the 21st-century sea; like Félix Fénéon's awesome Novels in Three Lines, each report will be a small masterpiece of plotting, set in the tidal landscapes of a feral coast. There will be heroes and antiheroes, evasions and threats.

[Image: From the Live Piracy Map].

Until then, just look up your favorite maritime hijacking via the Live Piracy Map – and wait till the next incident pops up.

(Via Alexis Madrigal).