That's a New Tactic Against Piracy, or Not

John Konrad's network comes through again, check this out.

I've been watching marinetraffic.com for some time now. A few weeks ago a station started reporting on ships in the Gulf of Adan. While I'm glad to see the information is available for an otherwise unreported part of the world I am a little uncomfortable to see it.

Piracy off Somalia is now legend. I wonder if this information could aid the pirates. They can now track shipping from their iPhone.

What I find most odd about all this is it seems the reporting station is the MV Kellie Chouest, a ship leased by Military Sealift Command for rescue and salvage ops.

What on Earth is an MSC contract ship doing reporting the movements of major shipping in the Gulf of Aden?

I could be wrong about the Kellie Chouest. But it seems the bubble of visibility follows her back and forth threw the gulf. Is she acting as a pirate lure? Is someone just not thinking?

OpSec may be dead but this is taking it a bit far.

You can see what he is talking about here - simply scroll on over to the Gulf of Aden.

Also check out John Konrad's take.

As for me, I would note that piracy in the specific Gulf of Aden region being covered has been really low for several months. With that said, the US flagged MV Kellie Chouest is trolling the northern Somalia shoreline with AIS on, and if there are mean dudes with guns on the ship - I'm OK with that.