Tech & Biz

Pirates Threaten Christmas Present Delivery

by Jordan Yerman | November 19, 2008 at 06:22 am

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Not content with hijacking oil tankers, pirates can potentially steal Christmas, too. Pirates wouldn't come to your village dressed as Santa and uttering Grinchy rhyming couplets, but instead would (and indeed already are) disrupt the delivery cycle upon which our economies depend.

With pirate attacks occurring further off the Somali coast, the Suez Canal is in effect threatened, and manufacturers and distributors are seriously considering bypassing the vital shortcut and taking the long way around: the Cape of Good Hope. Such a detour would drastically affect transit times (duh), and affect retail supplies for the holidays.

Such a change would also likely affect retail pricing, as shipping costs would skyrocket.

The increase in piracy has captured the public imagination as well, with net surfers checking out Google Earth in an attempt to track navy ship advancement, though that region is not only not updated in real time, but also has been skipped by Google Earth since the Iraq War started.

Somali pirates have been plundering ships off the Horn of Africa for years, but the recent surge in attacks has spilled out into the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, threatening access to the Suez Canal.

Now big firms employed in moving everything from oil, gas and coal to toys, are urgently considering whether to travel round South Africa's Cape of Good Hope instead.

The alternative voyage round the Cape of Good Hope would add upwards of three weeks to a typical journey, delaying goods to buyers and increasing transport costs.

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