While riding the train one day in November, I came across an item reported by the News Wire Service and, tucked away in the New York Daily News. The headline over the following article read: "Ship's hi-tech noise turned away pirates."
MIAMI-The crew of a luxury cruise ship used a military-style sonic weapon that blasts beams of ear-splitting noise to ward off a shocking attack over the weekend by a gang of pirates off Africa, the Seabourn Cruise Line revealed yesterday.
The ship, the Seabourn Spirit, had a Long Range Acoustic Device installed to defend itself, said Bruce Good, a company spokesman. The Spirit was 100 miles off Somalia when pirates fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns as they tried to get on board. The device is a so-called "nonlethal weapon" developed for the military after the 2000 attack on the destroyer Cole off Yemen. The devices have been deployed on commercial vessels since summer 2003, officials said.
I'm sure that one can understand how this small piece of reporting piqued my imagination while I was being held hostage by the New Jersey Transit Authority. I have flown to Istanbul in less time than it takes to travel the 60-mile stretch between Trenton and Manhattan, and was therefore quite appreciative for this little article that made my overactive imagination wonder. Once I lock on to something as juicy as this little piece of reporting, I can amuse myself for hours deliberating each point and nuance, and in a short time, I can have a whole screenplay written, directed and produced, with a marketing strategy to boot. My first question regarding this article is, "If pirates could board a vessel in the middle of the ocean, couldn't they do the same with a slow-moving train?"
That said, I began to wonder why these so-called pirates would want to board a ship 100 miles out to sea–and what kind of booty would they be seeking? Did they really think that firing rockets and machine guns at an ocean liner wouldn't alert the captain to signal for help from the Coast Guard or the military? After all, in this day and age, the buccaneer lifestyle can't be that easy. An F-18 plane, if deployed, can travel the 100-mile distance and have a pirate ship blown out of the water in less than 20 minutes after receiving a call for help. Which brings me once again to the thought of "booty." What kind of spoils were these pirates seeking? Jewels, liquor, ship furnishings? Arr matey, something was not adding up. After all, why attack a cruise ship unless the holds were filled with a much more nefarious cargo, such as military supplies?
Africa is a huge continent. A cruise ship off the west coast of Africa has easy access to Venezuela, Brazil or Cuba, and if a ship is cruising off the east coast of Africa, it could easily sail to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran and even Iraq. These pirates in question seemed fairly well-armed and funded, which makes me believe that their attack on the Seabourn Spirit had a much more sinister purpose, at this time in our history, than to line their pockets with the passenger's personal belongings. I suggest that someone should check into the ship's manifest and also consider this attack as much more than a high-sea hoist by a bunch of miscreant picaroons. Anyway, you can see how my feverish imagination works, and I even had Harrison Ford cast as the ship captain who saved the day by setting off the so-called "nonlethal" weapons that "blasts beams of ear-splitting noise."
My next thought centered on these beams of ear-splitting noise. I wondered, if they were so directional, how could they be accurately aimed at a target without affecting anything but the desired mark? What frequencies did they utilize? After all, this has to be more serious than 2.5K at 150dB, because once the "pirates" encounter this ear-splitting noise, wouldn't one assume that these dastardly buccaneers would run out and buy some aviator, noise-blocking headphones and attack again? My guess is that the frequency used by this "device" is a much lower frequency, say, anywhere from 50Hz and down. At this frequency range, if a beam of sound were directed towards the pirates at a very loud volume, it could possibly make them move their bowels and empty their bladders and, as I'm sure we all know, it is almost impossible to attack and board a ship with a wet load in your pants. Of course, if the generated noise were not directional, then everyone onboard the cruise ship would also be affected by the sound of the "device," which would then incapacitate the crew as well as the passengers. My script has now morphed into a comedy starring Will Ferrell as the captain, who is put in the precarious position of defending a ship filled with passengers and crew members suffering bleeding eardrums while walking around with a full load in their pants. Since the pirates are enduring the same fate, it should make for a very interesting encounter indeed.
I have delivered you a messy scenario based upon the scant knowledge given in the Daily News article but, once again, I assume that the brainiacs who devised this sonic nonlethal weapon did a sound check with it before they deployed it on commercial vessels and placed said object into the hands of sailors and ship captains. Though incorrect, it would be typical for the ship owners to let a layman handle the responsibility of the "ear-splitting beams," in the same way that many bar owners let their bar backs run their sound systems. Then again, does this device really require a technician and, if so, what does it pay to travel around the high seas on cruise ships just waiting for the chance to fire up the rig?
My guess is that for a gig like this, a technician would be on-call 24-7 and that the device would be on standby at all times, but I would still need some other questions answered before taking a gig such as this. Does the sound technician have to be on watch in the crow's nest as part of the job? If so, it might require a second and even third technician with whom to split shifts, and if this is the case, who is considered the A-1 tech? How much power is needed to run a nonlethal weapon, and does this device have more than one setting, or is it always set for nonlethal? If there is a spike in power, is it possible it can turn a nonlethal weapon into a lethal weapon? Is the audio technician liable? I can only assume (again) because of the weapon's nonlethal status, the scientists responsible for it have also developed a lethal version, and if so, is the lethal version only louder, or does the lethal version utilize different frequencies? Is this a full-range weapon or can it be run two in a two- and three-way mode? Is an equalizer required? Can this weapon be run with an active crossover, or just a passive crossover? How long is "long range," and if the party that one is attacking with said weapon is further away than that prescribed distance, would a delay weapon be needed? For that matter, can we actually apply this long-range technology to our speaker systems and do away with delay stacks? Do they make this device in a handheld version similar to an audio taser gun? If sound is classified as a weapon, does that mean only qualified, licensed audio technicians will be allowed to mix bands? Finally, if sound is determined to have a lethal status, does that mean all audio technicians will be required to register their hands as lethal weapons?
