Based on survivors' accounts, an attack usually begins with the pirate ship spotting a possible victim then steering the smaller, quicker vessel alongside the ship. The Somali pirates then simulate a party on deck complete with music, food and dancing.
This only lasts for several minutes before the pirates uncover AK-47's and grenade launchers to fire warning shots into the air and shout "pull over" into a large cardboard megaphone. Despite their large cache of weapons, very few hostages have ever been hurt during the attacks.
"We thought they wanted to party," said Greg B., a navigation mate aboard an oil tanker, which escaped an attack last month. "[The tanker crew] came on deck and we were all dancing. I never would have guessed they were pirates. Man, those pirates can dance. Luckily, we got out of there before they could come aboard."
Most of the Somali pirates are able to at least speak broken English enabling them to communicate at an elementary level with the ship's crew to make ransom demands. Some pirates, however, have a strong command of the language from watching and studying American television and film.
While there are many Somali pirates—some experts estimate thousands—they all seem to share one quirky trait--perhaps, rooted in their English studies. The pirates almost always refer to the seized crew members individually, even on cargo ships, as characters from the 70's and 80's American television show The Love Boat. Often attempting to match the character name to the hostage holding the identical position.
"One pirate threatened our ship's purser saying,'How you like that Gopher? Gopher like?' while threatening him with a pistol. How does he know about Gopher?" said Jim Tyler, a survivor from last October's pirate attack on the British ship Thames the Breaks.
The leader of a January 2008 pirate attack, however, was unable to pronounce Stubing, as in the Pacific Princess' Captain Merrill Stubing. Hostages tried desperately to keep themselves from laughing in front of the pirate who repeatedly mangled the pronunciation.
"The man in charge[pirate] kept screaming Stubbin' and not Stubing," said survivor Carol Daniels. "We all knew who he was referring to."
Strangely, the pirates usually call the female hostages Vicki no matter what their position on the ship. In addition, borrowing the trademark pose from the show's bartender, Isaac Washington, the sea criminals will smile and point both index fingers with arms bent when the captured crew readily cooperates or when receiving ransom payments.
In the age of satellites and pirated DVD's (Somali pirates claim they do not pirate DVD's) American television can be seen most anywhere on the globe from the great deserts to the highest peaks. Government officials in Somalia, Yemen and Kenya along with the CIA believe the pirates use the show as a training video to better understand the layout and the crew of a potential target.
"Our intelligence tells us they've been studying The Love Boat for some time," explained CIA official, Frank Tenley. "We hope to God they don't get a hold of Riptide."
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