Cruising for Trouble: Cruise Ships as Soft Targets for Pirates, Terrorists, and Common Criminals

by Mark Gaouette, Kendall Carver (Foreword by)

Overview

This book offers an alarming inside look at the security preparations of the cruise industry and the potential for cruise ships to be the target for pirates, terrorists, and criminal activity.

Cruising for Trouble exposes the acute vulnerability of cruise ships to piracy, terrorism, and crime, both on the high seas and in domestic and foreign ports-of-call. While cruise ships have ramped up in size and passenger capacity to become floating skyscrapers housing as many as 7,000 passengers, and while piracy incidents have increased since 2008 as the world economy has deteriorated, there has been no corresponding increase or enhancement in onboard security personnel, external tactical units, preventive screening, or coordinated response planning to guard against the growing threat of acts of piracy and internal and external terrorist attacks.

Commander Gaouette reveals to cruise passengers the very real security dangers they unwittingly face when they saunter up the gangway of a cruise ship for a carefree holiday. He sounds a clarion call to national and transnational security agencies, maritime regulators, legislators, and customers to compel the cruise industry to strengthen and reform its security programs before catastrophe strikes. The author, a longtime cruise industry insider who now serves as a top maritime security official in the Department of Homeland Security, details the many security defects and vulnerabilities of cruise ships, identifies the remedies, and makes the case for their urgent implementation. Extensively documented and illustrated, Cruising for Trouble is a vividly told cautionary for the ten million Americans who taken cruise-ship vacations each year and the millions more who would like to. As well as modeling the potential threats to cruise ships from pirates and maritime terrorists—who mimic each other's methods, overlap each other's territories, and might well find it mutually beneficial to combine their forces and resources—Commander Gaoutte recounts many actual examples of cruise-ship insecurity that have been swept under the carpet or spun by the cruise industry: pirate attacks, fires, onboard crime, mass food poisonings and infections, and the mysterious disappearances of cruise-ship passengers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313382345
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	03/19/2010
Pages:	285
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Commander Mark Gaouetteis a maritime security consultant to the Department of Homeland Security.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Kendall Carver
Abbreviations
one Modern Cruise Ships: Their Predators, Their Vulnerabilities, and Their Victims
two Cruise Ships in the Crosshairs: Pirates and Terrorists
three The Crime Statistics and Stories That the Cruise Lines Don't Want You to Know
four Protecting Passengers and Crews from Pirates, Terrorists, and Cruise Ship Accidents
five The Limitations of U.S. and International Maritime Regulatory Regimes and Maritime Agencies: Protecting Cruise Ship Passengers and Crews
six Clear and Present Dangers for Cruise Ships and Future Remedies
Notes
Index

What People are Saying About This

Fred Burton

"The book Cruising for Trouble is a must read for anyone interested in terrorism, global security and geo-politics. Gaouette's book reads like a novel, but is true, which comes from a lifetime of experience as a homeland security expert and State Department special agent. You won't be disappointed."
— Fred Burton, VP, Stratfor and author of Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent

James Walker

"From pirate attacks to crimes against passengers, Commander Gaouette's book offers a rare insider's view into the world of cruise ship security. Gaouette provides a unique perspective of the security challenges facing the cruise industry and its history of overboard passengers, sexual assaults and unsolved crimes. Passengers should take notice that there are real dangers both onboard cruise ships and in the high seas surrounding them. This is an overdue wake up call to the cruise industry."

— James Walker, Esq., maritime lawyer, 26 year member of the Maritime Law Association of the United States, and author of CruiseLawNews.com

James Walker

"From pirate attacks to crimes against passengers, Commander Gaouette's book offers a rare insider's view into the world of cruise ship security. Gaouette provides a unique perspective of the security challenges facing the cruise industry and its history of overboard passengers, sexual assaults and unsolved crimes. Passengers should take notice that there are real dangers both onboard cruise ships and in the high seas surrounding them. This is an overdue wake up call to the cruise industry."

—

James Walker, Esq., maritime lawyer, 26 year member of the Maritime Law Association of the United States, and author of CruiseLawNews.com

Fred Burton

"The book Cruising for Trouble is a must read for anyone interested in terrorism, global security and geo-politics. Gaouette's book reads like a novel, but is true, which comes from a lifetime of experience as a homeland security expert and State Department special agent. You won't be disappointed."

—

Fred Burton, VP, Stratfor and author of Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent