Somali pirate coast. See the building compounds where pirates and warlords cache arms, plan their attacks, obtain ransom, and communicate with the ships they seize offshore. View the actual pirate bases, vehicles, checkpoints, and pirate boats. Locate the precise areas of the sea where vessels are hijacked, and where the pirates drop anchor to hold their crews for ransom. Find secret airstrips where pirate crews get their daily fix of addictive khat leaf stimulant flown in. View the places where commandos have captured pirates fleeing or targeted their land-based resources.

Somalia Pirates Attack
This is the area of pirate hijackings, attacks, and attempted attacks on ships and yachts in the two major Pirate Attack Zones near the Horn of Africa: The Gulf of Aden Pirate Attack Zone off the Yemen coast, and The Mogadishu Pirate Attack Zone in the Indian Ocean off the southern Somali coast. The areas where the most famous hijacked vessels were attacked and held for ransom: MV Faina, LVCC Sirius Star Saudi Supertanker, and Le Ponant yacht.

For an UPDATE on the location of the Saudi Supertanker Sirius Star hijacking and ransom anchorage, please Click here: Saudi Supertanker Sirius Star update.

Click on each placemark for more details, and double-click to zoom in on each point of interest.

Researchers
Much more info is available to serious researchers. If you are in need of more in depth detailed resource information about this and other Somali pirate locations and maritime situations, you may contact the author of this message by sending a private message directly through the google earth community's messaging method. Please indicate how best to contact you.

SOMALI STAY AWAY ZONE - Somalia Coastline
Mariner Warning: There is a recommended 300 nautical mile Minimum Transit Distance from the Somali coast for vessels not calling on Somali ports. The outline of the 200 nm area is clearly shown. However, pirates often attack vessels 300 nautical miles or more off the coast, particularly near Mogadishu. Since Gulf of Aden is only 170 nautical miles wide at its widest point, and as narrow as 100 nautical miles in other points, it is not possible to be at least 200 nautical miles from the northern Somali coast when transiting between the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea or Indian Ocean. However, there is a recommended line of waypoints (not shown) adjacent to the Yemen coast for vessels transiting the Gulf of Aden.

GULF OF ADEN Pirate Attack Zone
Well over 90 vessels were attacked by Somali pirates in this area in 2008. The most likely mothership launch port for this part of the Gulf of Aden is Bosaso, Somalia. Vessels seized by pirates operating in this area are normally taken south around the Horn of Africa, to the Somali pirate coast along the Indian Ocean, and anchored near the ports there for ransom. Most of the Somali Pirate Attacks during 2008 were in the Gulf of Aden Pirate Zone.

MOGADISHU Pirate Attack Zone
At least 9 vessels were attacked by Somalia pirates in this area during April-September 2008. Mogadishu is the closest port to the Mogadishu Pirate Attack Zone, which extends in a radius eastward from this port approximately 100 to 600 nautical miles. Pirate attacks are launched with fast open boats attached to a larger pirate mothership, into the major shipping lane joining Europe with the various ports of Africa to the south. Vessels seized by pirates operating in this area are normally taken closer to the Somalia coast and anchored, then held for ransom.

EYL Pirate Ransom Zone
Eyl, Somalia is a main pirate port base in the Somalia region of Puntland. Area of ship ransom for ships seized in Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean near the Horn of Africa. When a pirated vessel arrives near Eyl, the pirates contact the base here by VHF marine radio. Pirates based in this town provide re-supply for food, weapons, and personnel reinforcements. The largest source of income in Eyl is ransom money and the pirates control the town. On 13 Feb 2008, missiles were launched against 3 pirate targets in Eyl by foreign naval forces, during the ransom of a ship here.

HOBYO Pirate Ransom Zone
Hobyo, Somalia (Obbia). Main pirate port home base in the Somalia region of Mudug. Many hijacked ships from the Gulf of Aden pirate zone are anchored near Hobyo. When a pirated vessel arrives within VHF radio range of Hobyo, pirates in small boats provide re-supply for food, weapons, and personnel reinforcements. The largest source of income in this Mudug region of Somalia is ransom money, and pirates control the town.

Harardhere Pirate Ransom Zone
Harardhere, Somalia. Main pirate base in the Somalia region of Galmudug. Many hijacked ships from the Gulf of Aden pirate zone are anchored along the coast, near Harardhere. Harardhere is not a port, it is 20km (13mi) from the coast. The nearby villages of El Ghan and Hinbarwaqo are ports comonly used by the Harardhere pirates in small boats to provide re-supply for food, weapons, and personnel reinforcements. The largest source of income in this region is ransom money, and pirates control the town.

MOGADISHU Pirate Mothership Home Port
Mogadishu, Somalia (Muqdisho). Port-of-call for Somali pirate motherships. A destination location for ransom payments, to free vessels and crews captured by pirates in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. The launches attached to the motherships can go ashore here and easily blend in with the local fishermen. After re-supply, the pirate mothership then moves about 250 nautical miles out into the Indian Ocean shipping lanes where they launch fast boats to hijack slower moving large commercial vessels, either for armed theft or to hold them for ransom. When ships are seized for ransom, the pirates often take the vessel up the coast of Somalia near the pirate home ports of Eyl or Hobyo, where they are anchored for re-supply with food and more pirates, until the ransom money arrives in Mogadishu or other locations in Somalia and the region. The city of Mogadishu is in ruins due to many years of war, and lack of a government for more than 17 years. Mogadishu has a major airport runway, but it is high risk location for foreigners. Large ships dock in the port, including international aid supply vessels carrying food and medicine, but are sometimes mobbed or robbed while the cargo is being unloaded.

AL MUKALLAH Pirate Mothership Supply Port
Al Mukallah, Yemen. Possible port for Somali pirate mothership re-supply. Closest port to the Gulf of Aden Pirate Zone. Most convenient place for pirates to launch direct attacks using fast motor launches, into the narrow major shipping lane joining Asia and Southern Africa with Europe. Direct attacks upon yachts perpetrated by groups of pirates in motor launches originating from Al Mukallah are common. Pirates may set up picket lines of several boats, stretched out like a net across the shipping lane. When a vessel passes through, the pirate boats attack in a group with automatic rifle fire while approaching at high speed. Pirate motherships are larger vessels that are capable of deep sea operation for extended time. They tow or carry the fast boats, long ladders, and grappling devices used by the pirates to seize a huge commercial vessel and board it. The small launches from a pirate mothership can dock at Al Mukallah and easily blend in with the local fishermen, gathering supplies. After re-supply, the mothership then moves further out into the shipping lanes where the fast boats attack vessels, either for armed theft or to hold them for ransom. When ships are seized for ransom, the pirates usually take the vessel to the coast of Somalia near the pirate home ports of Eyl or Hobyo, where they are re-supplied with food and more pirates until the ransom money arrives in Somalia.

BOSASO Pirate Mothership Supply Port
Bosaso, Somalia (Bossaso, Bosaaso). The major port on the Gulf of Aden, for the Puntland, Horn of Africa region, and a good port for Somali pirate mothership re-supply. Convenient place for pirates to launch attacks into the narrow major shipping lane joining Asia and Southern Africa with Europe. Fast open boats attached to the motherships can dock here and easily blend in with the local fishermen. After re-supply, the mothership then moves out adjacent to the shipping lanes where the pirate launches set up a picket line to attack vessels, either for armed theft or to hold them for ransom. When ships are seized for ransom, the pirates usually take the vessel around the Horn of Africa southward to the pirate ransom anchorage ports, where they are re-supplied with food and more pirates until the ransom money arrives in a Somali city. Direct attacks on yachts by groups of fast open boats originating from this port are common. Captured yachts are also used as pirate decoys, with the pirates sending out false distress calls, or hailing passing boats to help them with a "failed engine" or "lack of water and food". Ransom hostages from small vessels may be held by pirates on land, and these hostages are sometimes taken to Bosaso after being released by pirates operating in the Puntland region.

ALULA Pirate Refuge Port
Alula (Qalula or Calula or Caluula), Somalia. A small port of ransom and refuge for Somali pirates with seized vessels from the Gulf of Aden. Pirates headed for the main pirate home port base in Eyl, Somalia can use this port for re-supply. Smaller yachts are brought here and the crews taken ashore to be held for ransom. Alula is one of the few coastal villages in this area with a relatively good flat dirt airstrip, approximately 0.5km southwest of the port.

Map Details and Sources
Over 80 new exact locations vividly showing present-day pirate activities and resources on the Somali Pirate Coast, in the Horn of Africa. Many of these geographic coordinates have never been exactly pinpointed before.
This file is the product of extensive independent research using maps, charts, and reports beginning in year 1860 through late 2008. Sources include non-governmental, UN, governmental, maritime organisations, newspapers, broadcasts, private reports, internet, international, local, Somaliland, Puntland, and Somalia. Over 120 updated placemarks. Information and coordinates have been gathered from many news sources, maritime organisations, governments, insurance companies, and mariner reports. This includes location and background data extracted by researching a sampling of more than 60 armed pirate attacks during February-October 2008. Although each one of the pirate attacks is individually not predictable, one can easily see some very strong statistical probability trends in pirate operations. Locate tiny fishing villages with obscure hard-to-spell names, where pirates often seek refuge or re-supply. View the coastal towns and villages, including the various spellings of all their alternative names in Somali, English, Italian, and Arabic. Some of these were marked vaguely on maps during the days when cartographers lacked today's aerial/satellite imaging detail. Cities, major shipping ports, airport runways, roads, crossroads, markets, dirt airstrips. Journalists and researchers can use this information to track the movements of the world's most prolific pirates, in this lawless area of hostility, hunger, and human suffering.

This information and file has been posted in an effort to help people, and help mariners avoid bad situations.


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For those interested in comparing the size of a VELA VLCC tanker to other ships, I found one of them (might be the shipped that was hijacked, but obviously to difficult to tell) near Sabine Pass, Texas. It's not "under water"...it appears there are two satellite images and the ship was along the border of one of the images.

Sirius Star Found --4.595N, 48.085E



The Guardian's satellite pictures, which were shot a week ago, showed the Sirius Star five miles off the coast at a latitude of 4.595N and a longitude of 48.085E.

From a vantage point 423 miles above the Earth, the lawless waters of the Gulf of Aden appear tranquil and the 330-metre-long ship sitting low under a �68m cargo looks like a tiny green cigar floating on an inky ocean.

These pictures, taken by a satellite commissioned by the Guardian and hurtling over Africa at four miles a second, show the Sirius Star, the Saudi supertanker which 12 days ago became the biggest prize ever seized by the Somali pirates who have claimed the Gulf of Aden as their hunting ground.



An IKONOS satellite image of the pirated Saudi supertanker Sirius Star.


The images also reveal a triangle of ships, three of the 40 vessels to have been hijacked in Somali waters this year. Although not as vast as the Sirius Star, the Stolt Strength, the African Sanderling and the Yasa Neslihan are together home to 64 seafarers, two-thirds of them from the Philippines.

With the taking of the Sirius Star and its 25-strong crew a little before 9am on November 15, the number of international seafarers floating in hijack limbo off the coast of Somalia rose to almost 300 and the issue of piracy surged to the top of news bulletins around the world.

The multinational composition of the crew - 19 Filipinos, two Britons, two Poles, one Croat and one Saudi Arabian - may have guaranteed global coverage, but the Sirius's sheer size and huge, precious cargo proved equally arresting.

The ship, very nearly a third of a kilometre long from bow to stern, was carrying 2m barrels of oil from Saudi Arabia to the US, almost a quarter of the kingdom's daily oil production.

And although the pirates who swarmed up the side of the supertanker may have halved their original ransom demand to $15m (�9.8m), the situation is no closer to a resolution.............................................>

REST OF ARTICLE

Hello danescombe, thank you for posting the copy of the article.

However, your overlay alignment and location is in error.
Also, the longitude location in the article is not correct.

expedition hi

Quote:

---

Also, the longitude location in the article is not correct

---

The ship was measuring 293m in the overlay ( 37m too short )
I've now tweaked the the centre of the vessel to now sit dead on Latitude 4.595N, longitude 48.085E, with the ship measuring 330 metres.

Going off the Guardian article -its now overlayed at the correct location and showing the correct length.

Quote:

---

However, your overlay alignment and location is in error.

---

The alignment in Google Maps does not correspond with GE-->so it appear mis-aligned in GMaps.

Do you have other information to the exact location of the vessel? Have the Guardian newspaper got it wrong?

This is an update on the hijacked Saudi oil supertanker Sirius Star.
You may view this information in Google Earth.

The vessel was hijacked by Somali Pirates on 15 November 2008 while on a course in international waters of the Indian Ocean. It is reported to be carrying two million barrels of oil and a crew of 25. Including, 19 crew members from Philippines, 2 from Britain, 2 from Poland, 1 Croatian and 1 Saudi.

Image: Sirius Star, Saudi VLCC supertanker.

Please download the file and view it in Google Earth. After download, click or double-click on any of the items to view more detailed information about each item. You can see this in Google Maps, but you will lose some good zoom details.

The vessel Sirius Star is a VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier), approximately 330 metres in length.

Image: Typical VLCC in motion, in the Suez Canal.

This file for Google Earth includes the following points of interest:

Course of the vessel Sirius Star -- from normal course on 12 November 2008; through the pirate attack on 15 November when the vessel was seized; the course from the hijack point to the Somali Pirate Coast; then being held for ransom at anchorage 20 November; and other possible movements through 25 November.

Sirius Star 12 NOV 2008 - Leaving the Arabian Sea / Gulf of Aden area. VLCC vessel heads southward along its projected course from a Saudi port into the open waters of the Indian Ocean, and toward the southern tip of Africa and into the Atlantic. The vessel would soon be hijacked 3 days later, 1200 nautical miles south of here.

Sirius Star VLCC, 15 NOV 2008 - Supertanker attacked and hijacked here by armed pirates in skiffs operating from a nearby pirate mothership which had been tracking the VLCC vessel as it moved southward along its projected course from a Saudi port toward the southern tip of Africa and into the Atlantic. Taken to Gaan anchorage near Harardhere and held for ransom.


Image: Satellite imagery of Sirius Star anchored near Gaan on the Somali coast, being held for ransom.

Sirius Star VLCC. Saudi supertanker. Hijacked vessel, held for ransom at this anchororage point 7km offshore, 20 November 2008. Reported in Guardian UK article with IKONOS satellite imaging, see overlay.

LISTEN to Captain of the Sirius Star, Marek Nishky , speaking via satphone while at ransom anchorage.

IKONOS Sat Imaging Overlay dated 20 NOV 2008.
Cropped. centre= lat 4.59716 lon 48.065264

Sirius Star VLCC. 25NOV2008. Saudi supertanker. Estimated location, unconfirmed. Hijacked vessel reported at anchor for ransom, November 2008.

Distance from shore: measurement 6776m (4.2 miles or 3.65NM)


Image: Harardhere pirate base.

Harardhere (Harardera) Somali Galmudug region, Harardhere district. Non-aligned region of ex-Somalia failed state. Pirate town, Suleiman clan. Local militia checkpoint. Major point of re-supply and personnel resources for pirate ransom anchorage operations. Supply and trading point for the pirate town of Hobyo (Obbia). Pirates are well-connected in this town, and piracy is by far the dominant economic interest. Although Harardhere is not a port, it is located approximately 20km (12mi) from the ocean, within two-way radio range of hijacked ships anchored off the coast. A web of dirt track roads joins it with several coastal beach launching points for small pirate skiff boats. Harardhere is considered a Suleiman clan stronghold and former base for one of the most infamous pirates, Mohamed Abdi Hassan �Afweyne� (Big Mouth). Another leader of the Harardheere-based pirate groups is the warlord Garaad Mohamud Mohamed.

Location reports
An individual in Harardhere, interviewed by media via phone said that the pirates had "moved the ship 100km off shore". The movement of the vessel from its prior point closer to the shore, is in response to the threat of Islamist hostile action at Harardhere. The 100km report may be exagerated.

LISTEN to the boss pirate Daybad, aboard Sirius Star, being interviewed via satphone.

Speaking to VOA by satellite telephone aboard the hijacked supertanker, the pirate leader, who refuses to be identified, insisted the vessel is still anchored off the coast of El Gaan near the central Somali town of Haradhere.

VOA reports on satphone interview with the pirate leader aboard Sirius Star: "The pirate said his group has not taken the tanker from the area and they are not concerned about being attacked by the al-Shabab or by any other Islamist group. He declined to confirm reports that his group may reduce the $25 million dollar ransom demand for the release of the tanker and its 25-member crew. A resident in Haradhere, who wished to remain anonymous because of security concerns, told VOA the pirates took the ship and headed out to sea two days ago. That ship is very far from town now, the resident said. He added the pirates fled because they feared Islamist militias were preparing to mount an assault to free the ship."

Gaan (El Ghan or Ceel Gaan or Ceel Gan) Somali coast of Indian Ocean, Galmudug region, Harardhere district. Non-aligned region of ex-Somalia failed state. Abandoned settlement, now a beach launch point for small fishing boats and pirate re-supply skiffs. One of the points where Harardhere-based (Suleiman clan) pirates anchor ransom vessels offshore. Famous hijacked Spanish fishing vessel 'Playa de Bakio' was also anchored 5km offshore, after being hijacked on 20 April 2008.

Gaan airstrip, Somali Coast.
Runway: Length 5000FT (1520m) approximate, unverified.
30� / 210�
Beach sand strip.
Unknown condition.
Warning to air traffic: Pirate and hostile forces at this location!

El Gunier, Somali coast. Point or settlement (abandoned). Possible pirate boat launch location, although there are better launching points nearby at Gaan and Hinbarwaqo.

Harardhere Ghan Road. Pirate supply road.

Harardere coast road track. Harardere - Hinbarwaqo. Dirt track road frequented by pirates, between Harardere and the Hinbarwaqo small boat port on the Somali coast of Indian Ocean. Sandy, unknown condition. Prone to shifting sand.

Ransom information update.
Pirates are demanding a ransom for the Saudi supertanker Sirius Star. Farah Abd Jameh, presented as one of the pirates spoken with by satphone, was broadcast by Al-Jazeera via audio feed:
"Negotiators are located on board the ship and on land. Once they have agreed on the ransom, it will be taken in cash to the oil tanker. We assure the safety of the ship that carries the ransom. We will mechanically count the money and we have machines that can detect fake money."

Further updates may be added as they become publicly releasable.

Video--Channel 4 News (UK) ---The Pirates Of Somalia

Hello danscombe,

Thank you for your recent contributions of informative articles, links, and overlays. Please continue!

For your overlay file, you may feel free to extract the overlay and/or ship location placemark contained within the recent Sirius Star Update file.

To check it, if you make the overlay approximately 50% transparent, you will notice that the shore and land features of the IKONOS image provided by Guardian closely matches some existing Google Earth imaging shore and land features. These can be used to scale and align.

With some work, this enabled the recent sat image overlay to be aligned and scaled precisely, and then a more exact vessel location was extracted. The overlay now is rendered compatible with Google Maps as well.

Regards,
Expedition

I just added this is a post before I found your thread.

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat.php?...9sglhemrsq4ljk4

It's from last year but it does line up nicely with the info you have.

If you haven't found it yet, UNOSAT (the satellite branch of the United Nations organization) has put together a number of very interesting maps about piracy in Somalia which can be found here. This information could possibly be useful to enhance your maps.