Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of…Run!

Picture a dusty career counselor’s office in Baton Rouge sometime ago.  Max Hardberger has just handed the counselor his completed Career Assessment Inventory, upon which he has listed his top three prospective occupations.  They are: Teacher; Lawyer; Reverse Pirate.  The counselor looks at Max.

“Teacher is good.  Lawyer is good.  Reverse Pirate is…well, what the hell is it, Max?”

Max Hardberger sits back and, with a twinkle in his evenly trimmed white mustache¹, looks at the counselor and says, “I’m going for all three.  Maybe more.”  Max is the kind of guy who makes career counselors reach for the matches to light both aroma therapy candles and unfiltered cigarettes.

The first and perhaps most important thing to say about Max Hardberger is that he is a real person.  I am not making him up.  He lives a life that could be described as “swashbuckling”, or, at the very least, “adventuresome.”  Among other things, Max Hardberger either has been or is currently:  a lawyer, a teacher, an author (not to mention a graduate of the University of Iowa’s prestigious Writers’ Workshop), a pilot, a cropduster, a stuntman, a touring blues drummer, and, of course, a reverse pirate.  Fascinating jobs, each in their own ways, and professions Joe Average, given any single one of them, would be content with for life.  But even on that fascinating list, one is forced to admit “reverse piracy” really stands out.  I don’t even know if “reverse piracy” is what you call it, mainly because I never even knew there was such a thing.  I just use the term because, in my limited nautical vocabulary, there is simply no more appropriate way to describe what Max Hardberger does for a living these days.  That, of course, begs a few questions.

First, though, some background.  Max is the founder of a company called Vessel Extractions, LLC, based in New Orleans.  VessEx for short.  VessEx specializes in recovering stolen ships and airplanes from thieves and pirates.  According to VessEx’s website, “Those who have a legal right to possess a ship…often cannot exercise that right due to circumstances beyond their control.  VessEx can restore a client’s control over ships which have been…stolen by thieves or held by a disobedient crew.”  Through a service called Shiprotek, VessEx also specializes in escorting vulnerable ships through pirate-infested waters.  Again, from the website:  “If the threat vessel(s) continues its approach, the team will take measures to repel the attack…Experience has indicated that, when presented with armed resistance, most pirates will break off the attack and decide to seek easier prey.”

Modern piracy, particularly off the horn of Africa, has been prevalent in the news lately, and, notwithstanding the happy fate of the Maersk Alabama crew last year, many stories do not end well.  Real piracy, even now, is a problem on the world’s high seas with no easy solution.  It’s nice to know, however, that Max Hardberger has come up with a few.

Max was kind enough to answer a few of my questions for this piece, and, seriously, when a person steals ships from the pirates who stole them from their rightful owners in the first place…well, there are going to be a number of questions.  Max has just written a book about his life as seafaring-scourge-to-the-ne’er-do-wells out on the high seas.  It’s called SEIZED: A Sea Captain’s Adventures Battling Scoundrels and Pirates While Recovering Stolen Ships in the World’s Most Troubled Waters and it comes out April 6th.

Paul Luikart:  You’ve been labeled a modern-day pirate.  Does it jive with the work you do?

Max Hardberger: No, that’s sort of a joke.  I’m not a pirate at all.  Technically, a pirate is one who commits armed boardings, and I never do that.  In fact, I never use violence of any kind.  Plus, a pirate is, by definition, a robber, and I only act on the side of right.  My clients have an immediate possessory right to the ships I extract, but unfortunately their ships have been seized in outlaw countries that don’t respect international law, which is why they have to hire me.  The people who steal ships through corrupt seizures are pirates, just as surely as are the pirates of Somalia, and it amuses me to be a pirate who steals ships back from pirates.

PL: Where does your sense of adventure come from?

MH: I think it’s just as I wrote in SEIZED: my parents loved nautical adventure books and we had hundreds of them.  Unfortunately, they were also very strict and conservative, so there was neither the time nor the money for real adventure.  I think the pent-up desire for action—action of any kind—just burst out when I left home.  Maybe it was all those years of repressed desire for action that motivates me.

PL: Would you call yourself an adventurer?

MH: Only in terms of things I do for fun, like sailing or jungle hiking or traveling around places like Haiti and Colombia.  As for my professional career, like cropdusting or delivering planes to foreign countries, or stealing ships out of outlaw ports, I am definitely not an adventurer.  When it comes to a client’s welfare, or the good of the business, I am very conservative.  I and my partner in Vessel Extractions LLC, Michael Bono, take every precaution and plan for every eventuality when we prepare for an extraction.  We take no unnecessary risks and we have a strict policy against the use of any kind of force.  Even as a cropduster, I was like most of the dusters I knew; we did our jobs and were happy to go home at night.  I didn’t feel any need to hotdog or take unnecessary risks because risk is the nature of the job.  I think of myself as able to judge risk and act accordingly, but that’s a lot different from being adventurous.

PL: How do you introduce yourself (and your line of work) at parties?

MH: I usually just say, “lawyer,” or “marine surveyor.”  It’s too complicated otherwise.

PL: What conditions have you observed (economically, socially, etc.) in countries where piracy is prevalent?

MH: Obviously, the first requirement for an active pirate community is a lack of organized government.  No effective government will allow unchecked piracy in lands and waters it controls.  If it does (i.e. The yacht hijackings in the waters of eastern Venezuela), there is some question whether the attacks are piracy or the actions of a rogue nation.  Economic conditions have relatively little impact.  Regardless of how rich a country is, if its citizens can plunder successfully, they will, whether it’s ships or truck convoys.  If they can’t, they won’t.  Haiti is the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country, but there are no (or very, very few) pirate attacks launched from its shores.  Look at the current wave of attacks against the yachts in the lower Caribbean; these are countries with healthy tourism-based economies, but the bad guys have found an opportunity to attack unarmed yachts and are taking advantage of it.

PL:  Are the yacht attacks in the lower Caribbean possibly the actions of rogue nations, meaning the attackers are directed to attack these yachts by rogue governments?  Who is being attacked?  (It’s not Venezuelans attacking Venezuelan yachters, right?)  In your opinion, how should the governments of the attacked yachters respond to the attacks?

MH: No, it’s Venezuelan bandits in speedboats attaching foreign yachtpersons on their boats as they navigate in the Gulf of Paria and along the northeastern coast of Venezuela.  I don’t think the Venezuelan government directs the attacks—I suspect they are simply private enterprise at its worst—but the government seems to have no interest in preventing them or catching the pirates, even when—as has happened fairly recently—they end up killing people.  I suspect that Chavez—who has famously railed against golfers as despicable examples of the privileged leisure class—probably has more sympathy for these Robin Hoods of the high seas than their white-flannel-socialite victims.

It’s intuitive that a government would want to strike a balance between encouraging and discouraging pirate attacks against foreigners, whether it’s the Venezuelan, Indonesian, or Somali government.  If none of their own citizens is attacked, the pirates are seen as heroes bringing in much-needed foreign currency.  This strengthens the government’s chances of staying in power, the sine qua non of all Third World governments.  But it’s possible to have the best of both worlds: a robust and well-paid public-relations corps that can issue regrets and denials and defiant rejections of “imperialist attempts to interfere in our national sovereignty.”  Officials can be fired and a couple of “show arrests” can be made, but meanwhile, with a wink and a nod, the attacks go on.

The proper course for other countries when faced by a rogue nation like Venezuela is to take concerted action—embargo, blockade, directed anti-pirate military force—against this threat to world peace.  It was decided hundreds of years ago that the civilized nations of the world cannot allow piracy to flourish anywhere, even beyond their own borders, and this international policy should be directed, when necessary, against governments as well as individuals.

PL: What’s the code of the road out there on the high seas?

MH: There is none.

PL: So, if you’re on one of these yachts or ships in international waters and you are attacked by pirates, can you shoot them?  What laws are on the books about defending your vessel in international waters?

MH: Yes, you can shoot them.  Every commercial vessel in international trade has the right to carry small arms onboard, which must be kept under the control of the master.  A pirate attack may be repelled by any means necessary, including lethal force.  The laws that govern a ship’s crew’s actions are primarily those of the nation that has flagged the ship.  As a practical matter, I can tell you that a ship captain in international water has a lot of leeway.  I suppose that a ship captain who testifies, “Yes, I shot those peaceful, unarmed stowaways because I hate Dominicans,” could get in trouble, but generally any reasonable action taken by a vessel’s master to defend himself, his crew, or his ship will be given credence.

PL:  You occasionally hear stories about how some companies hire private security teams to sail with them, some companies go with non-lethal defenses, like high powered water cannons, etc.  What works, what doesn’t?

MH: None of that silliness works.  A water cannon vs. AK-47s and RPGs?  Even the vaunted sonic attack equipment has proven ineffective.  What works is armed defense of a vessel.  A cargo ship, with its high, straight sides and solid-steel bulwark with scuppers for firing ports is a natural fortress.  The 3/8” steel plating of a ship (many have thicker plating than this) is proof against small-arms fire.  The essential thing is to keep pirates out of RPG range, which is fairly short.  Also, almost all pirates are looking for an easy mark, not a protracted gunbattle.  As soon as they realize they’re facing an armed foe, the odds are very high that they’ll break off the attack and look for easier, unarmed prey.

PL: What is appealing to you about vessel extraction with all the dangers and unknowns?

MH: I don’t know the answer to this question.  It started when I was faced with situations where, unless I acted, some bad guy was going to steal a ship.  Later, it sort of became a business, although I never pursued it as a business until I teamed up with Michael Bono and we formed Vessel Extractions, LLC.  Before then, I just did it when somebody called me and said he was about to lose his ship.  If there’s anything appealing about it, other than the money, I suppose it’s the satisfaction of seeing crooks defeated.

PL: Extracting vessels sometimes violates the laws of the countries from which you are extracting the vessel, even though it arrived in that country by means of law violation.  How do you work around or through those laws?  How do you protect yourself?

MH: There’s not really any way to protect yourself from the consequences of getting caught.  You just have to work hard to avoid it and hope it never happens.  Happily, I’ve never been caught, although I’ve had a few narrow escapes and lucky breaks.  Michael and I do have some procedures—contingency plans—in place in case something bad happens, but of course those aren’t for public consumption.

PL: Are you ever worried that any of the bad guys you’ve taken a ship back from will find you and come after you?

MH: I can say truthfully I’ve never worried about that.  I live in a state with a very enlightened attitude toward the right to self-defense.  I’m not motivated to look up any of those scumbags, but there’re a couple I’d be glad to see!  Actually, I have run into former antagonists a couple of times.  I was once introduced to “Jose Maldonado” in Miami, after I’d foiled his attempt to steal the Patric M, and we both pretended we’d never heard of the other.  Actually, we got along quite well for the week we had to work together.

PL: Can you share an example of a narrow escape?

MH: Well, I’ve had a lot of them.  The time my plane’s engine caught on fire in Mexico was one of them.  It was just luck that I was able to get it extinguished and land safely.  Another time, on a dock on the Mississippi River, I bent over to look at something just as a huge “headache” ball on a crane swung past and brushed the hair on the back of my head.  If I hadn’t bent over at that moment, the headache ball would’ve killed me instantly.  I had to drop flat to the ground to avoid the back-swing.  I’ve come close to drowning a few times, too, and that’s a nasty way to go.  I like the kind of scare, like the headache ball, when it’s over before you know what’s happening.

—

And unfortunately, this interview is over too.  But, “Yes, you can shoot them”?!  A creepy guy called Jose Maldonado?!  Headache balls?!  For more of stuff just like this, and to learn how Hardberger recaptures stolen ships without resorting to violence, read SEIZED when it is available.  For more information on Max and his book, visit Max’s website, maxhardberger.com.  And maybe encourage any career counselors you know to read the book.  Maybe even give it to them.  With a big pack of Camel Extra Wides.  Because they’re gonna need them.