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Capt. Dan Biernat concurs.
Standing off to the side while peering at me with amused solicitude, Philbrick’s
partner and fellow yacht security instructor at Wärtsilä emphasizes
the pair’s heavy reliance on “experiential learning,” an
approach typical of military boot camps and police training academies.
“This approach tends to make things more memorable,” Biernat
suggests.
I smile ruefully at
the two guys for a moment, marveling at the differences between them.
While Philbrick’s every inch the tough, veteran cop, Biernat looks
like a bespectacled professor or diplomat, in spite of the fact that he’s
a retired master mariner, with a career that began at a maritime academy
in Szczecin, Poland, and ended with the command of oil tankers and cruise
ships worldwide.
Biernat is more than
just a highly experienced seafarer, however. He’s a member of working
committees and groups for the International Maritime Organization (IMO),
a prestigious United Nations body that promulgates international maritime
standards, the SOLAS convention of 1974 being the most noteworthy. As
such, he’s party to the considerable expansion of SOLAS regulations
that began shortly after September 11, 2001. While this expansion—subsumed
under the title International Ship and Port Facility Security Code or
ISPS Code—presently beefs up security for large commercial vessels
and port facilities only, it is likely to up the ante for yachts in the
near future, according to Biernat.
“The trend is obvious,”
he explains. “Even now, during times of heightened security, some
yachts may already be subject to baggage-screening procedures while in
port, as well as vendor-access denials and other restrictions stipulated
by the codes as they pertain to port facilities. Such things are important
for owners and crews to know before they arrive in these ports, which
is why it is so important to teach them.”
Biernat is a yacht-security
true believer. I’d spent much of the earlier part of the day with
him in a classroom at the Wärtsilä facility in nearby Fort Lauderdale,
listening to his heartfelt descriptions of a portion of the curriculum
he and Philbrick teach there. We delved into questions like how to assess
a particular yacht’s risk of being attacked, how to develop a security
plan, how to recognize various kinds of weaponry as well as poisonous
gases and other dangerous substances, and how to deal with various aspects
of human behavior that surface during terrorist incidents.
Biernat believes that
terrorism has supplanted piracy as the real threat to ships and yachts
today. He says terrorists are more sophisticated, committed, and ruthless
than pirates, primarily because they’re inspired by ideology, not
larcenous intent. “Pirates merely want your money,” he argues,
“but terrorists want to make a global statement, perhaps by using
trained personnel to commandeer a yacht, summarily dispose of her crew,
and then use her to blow up a port, a cruise ship, or an international
canal.”
The ramifications of
this point of view are profound, of course, especially when considered
from the standpoint of personal response to a legitimate threat. “While
some people advise passivity and negotiative agreeableness if one is confronted,”
Biernat says, “Walter and I advise immediate, educated action in
most cases—it is often the only way.”
I rub my neck gingerly,
looking around the brightly lit room, taking in the mug shots of the September
11th terrorists, the dummy guns and knives laying about, the sage watchfulness
of the big cat on the table nearby, and the two friendly guys standing
in front of me, telling me, more or less, that yachting as a way of life
is changing forever.
The pain in my neck
is gone, but my impressions of the day and night remain. In fact, they
linger still, although I’d most assuredly prefer that they didn’t.
Wärtsilä
North America Phone: (954) 327-4700. www.wartsila.com.
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