Analysis of the piracy activities in the gulf of guinea in view of turkish ship owners.

Maritime security threats in different regions of the world have heightened the focus on it and amongst these, the Gulf of Guinea came into prominence lately, as comprising great amount of the incidents have been reported. There are ship owners mainly operating tankers and chemical tankers to the Gulf of Guinea region and 16 attacks/attempt of attacks have taken place for those ships operating in the region with Turkish flag or with the flag of convenience since 2008, according to the information gathered through the IMO registry and open sources. The main aim of the study is, to analyze the piracy activities uprising in the Gulf of Guinea Region lately, from Turkish ship owners' view. In accordance with the purpose, to learn the perceptions of the selected ship owners who have operated their ships in the region with the possibility of being exposed to a piracy attack (or have already been attacked) in the past is the second aim. Lastly, to create awareness by taking advantage of lessons learned and to take new measures (or to review the existing ones) by revealing different perspectives are the third aim. In this context, a semi-structured interviews have been made with selected seven ship owners' 'Company Security Officers' who have operated their ships in the past or are already operating in the Gulf of Guinea region. As a conclusion; Privately Contracted Armed Security Personnel (PCASP) are benefited from in the region substantially, non-lethal (passive) measures are being used effectively, ships operating in the region are mostly insured with Kidnap&Ransom insurance, increasing piracy activities in the region effects negatively ship owners' ideas on operating in the region and lastly, sefarers exposed to piracy attacks in the region still keep on working although they were affected negatively. For those relevant studies to be made in the future it would be beneficial; - to research the same topic separately instead of addressing security, economics and personnel topics at one hand, as seen in this study, - to research the subject broadly with other scientific research techniques (such as questionnaire) including Turkish and foreign shipmasters' views who were exposed to piracy attacks and other aspects of ithe influence of piracy, such as cyber security.