Would it be inappropriate to suggest that pirates in that part of the world may have been significantly affected by the 2004 Tsunami?

This calls to mind The">http://"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crimson_Permanent_Assurance">The Crimson Permanent Assurance

Ugh, apologies for the botched link.

Malacca Inn !!

One of my cousins is the captain of a cargo ship. Pirates are definitely an occupational hazard in some waters. They can come on board with small boats, surround a ship and rob some of it. Even if distress signals were sent out, the complicated nature of shipping ownership (quite often owned by Norway or Greece, but carrying a Panama flag, with crews from Third World countries like India) means that often local navies aren't too willing to intervene even if they could, especially in international waters. SOme items are more amenable to theft than others, of course.

He told me a story of how his ship (which carried a large cargo of grain) was once seized in Liberia by rebels aligned with Charles Taylor. The British and the Indian navy kept on passing the buck to each other. In the end, Charles Taylor's wife came on board the ship and said that the grain should be given out to the poor in neighboring villages. I don't believe they had a proper dock for taking the grain and the quantity was so huge that it took weeks to unload and distribute, while the ship was still detained !!