The first incident involved the 76,466-dwt Capetan Giorgis (built 2005) at around 01:00 hrs local time in position 01° 13.64’N, 103° 58.3’E.
The Marshall Islands-flagged ship was reportedly boarded by four men while underway at about 3.8 nm off Tanjung Sengkuang, Batam.
Initial incident reports suggest that nothing was missing from the vessel and that the crew was safe and unharmed.
In the second incident, the containership MSC Vancouver (built 2004) was boarded by seven armed men at around at 05:45 hrs local time.
The incident took place in position 01° 6.0’N, 103° 34.0’E around 9 nm northeast off Pulau Karimun Besar, Indonesia.
Latest report say there was no further sighting of the perpetrators and the ship is said to have not required any further assistance.
However, it later emerged that the perpetrators had robbed the second engineer of a gold chain and watch.
The two incidents took place in the heavily congested eastbound lane of the Straits of Malacca and Singapore (SOMS).
Details of this latest incident came in an alert from the Singapore-based Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) Information Sharing Centre.
“From the close proximity of the two incidents, it is of high probability that the robbers will continue to pry in this area over the next few days,” ReCAAP said.
“The ReCAAP ISC recommends vessels to take extra precautionary measures when operating in this area, especially in the hours of darkness, post extra all round lookouts and alert the authorities as soon as possible, even in attempted cases.”
