Are there no firearms on those ships?
I guess not.
I asked the same question of a friend of mine. He sails as Chief Engineer on U.S.flagged merchant vessels and just returned from a four month trip to the Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean.
He says that being armed is a violation of all kinds of laws,both US and inrenational. It makes no sense to me,but that's the way it is evidently.
They have fire-hoses and that's usually about it, except maybe a handgun in the captain's safe. Ridiculous.
In most world ports they would not be allowed, so they don't have them. Maybe a "shark gun" on smaller ships, but an oil tanker that big would have no need of them.
I too would have thought a competent sea captain who knows those waters would have no problem picking up a half a dozen AK47’s for a few hundred dollars and secreting them somewhere about his cabin or bridge, or in a tool box somewhere, in a ship that size they’d never be found if nosey customs guys came looking (even then he could deny all knowledge of them if found).
The crew is made up of Poles, Croats, Filipinos and Brits tell me there aren’t at least a handful of former servicemen among them who’d be more than happy to let rip at oncoming Islamic pirates.
I just finished reading Dangerous Waters: Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas yesterday. The author goes into this in detail. First off, in most of their ports of call privately owned firearms are strictly forbidden and being caught with one is a ticket to a long prison sentence. Secondly, there are a lot of volatile liquids and venting combustible gasses on these tankers, and to fire a gun is to invite a catastrophic fire or explosion.
There are outfits like Blackwater that do provide maritime security, but they aren't cheap, and there are just plain too many tankers out there to put security on all of them. So most of the time the owners settle for keeping the ship well lit, keeping the firehoses going full blast and aimed at the likely boarding spots, and locking up the interior of the ship like a fortress.
Interestingly enough, both the Israelis and the Russians are well known for their assertive defensive postures, and their ships almost never get attacked. Something to do with bloated bullet-riddled bodies washing up on the beach a few days after someone tries it.