According to Fairplay, Denmark’s TORM crew onboard the tanker Torm Gertrud used a novel method to repel a pirate attack off Nigeria over the weekend. Jakob Risom, press officer at TORM reported that the crew overflowed the ballast system meaning that water was poured over the side of the vessel.
“It did no harm that the ship was in ballast, and it had a freeboard of 11.5m at the time,” Jakob Risom explained. “It must be very hard to climb a ladder from a small skiff up that height if water runs over the ship’s side.” The 30,058 dwt product tanker had been 34 nm off Lagos when pirates attacked the ship.
Maritime Bulletin stressed the importance of the fact that the tanker was proceeding from Lome Benin to Lagos Nigeria in ballast, while as a rule, pirates try to hijacked tankers loaded with oil products for stealing costly cargo.
It is not the first time TORM crews repel pirates. Almost a year ago, 21 crewmen of the 46,955 dwt product tanker Torm Republican managed along with company’s armed guards to repel pirates in the southern Arabian Sea.
Ballast tank overflow during flow-through exchange
Source: INTERMANAGER, Maritime Bulletin
Officer of the Watch 
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