Piracy on the high seas has been a major problem for many years. Determined pirates with fast boats track commercial vessels, board them with violence and then demand and get large ransoms from the owners of the ships for their release. It has been a lucrative business for the criminals. The conventional responses to this problem have been predictable, costly and clumsy e.g.
1. Avoid the affected areas and sail much greater distances.
2. Travel in convoys with the support of National Navies
3. Armed guards on every ship.
Now a British couple have launched an innovative alternative solution for the problem. Teresa and David Stevens of Lee-on-Solent run a maritime security company, Marine and Auto Security, which has developed a plastic barrier called the Guardian to fit over ships’ rails. It prevents anyone from boarding uninvited. The design is a large plastic P shape which is fitted over the railings of ships. It provides an overhang which makes it impossible for pirates to attach their ladders or grappling hooks. The Guardian has already been fitted to over 100 ships and earlier this year it prevented an attack in the Gulf of Guinea off the coast of Nigeria. There is a fuller article in the Daily Mail.
If there is a problem with a process in the use of a product then look for an innovation in the process or an innovation in the product. There is always a better solution waiting to be found. A good idea like the Guardian can prove simpler, cheaper and more effective.
Paul Sloane
