9781422277157

“Y ou know what I was thinking?” “What’s that?” “What do we do if we’re taken hostage?” If nothing else, sailors are a superstitious bunch. It’s bad luck to change the name of ship, and if a seaman’s hat blows overboard, well, count on a long voyage home. So it wasn’t surprising that Captain Richard Phillips, skipper of the cargo ship Maersk Alabama , became unduly concerned when one of his crew voiced nervousness about being taken hostage by pirates. The ship was transporting humanitarian aid to Kenya. The sailor, the ship’s third mate, had every reason to worry. Pirates had ap- proached the vessel twice within the last 24 hours as the Alabama traveled off the coast of Somalia, a country in East Africa. The area, bordering the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden, had become a prime hunting ground for marauding M ission B riefing

Words To Understand clambered scrambled, usually upward edict official proclamation fiberglass plastic reinforced by glass fibers hubris excessive self-confidence superstitious fearful of imaginary things superstructure parts of a ship above the main deck

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