Hunting pirates
23.02.12
STOCKTON - A 23-year-old Stockton man was at the center of an international incident last week when the U.S. Navy rescued Iranian fishermen held captive by Somali pirates.
Ensign Kendall Bolt, assigned to the destroyer USS Kidd, was a member of the boarding party that saved 13 fishermen in the northern Arabian Sea.
In a phone interview from Bahrain on Friday, Bolt said his primary mission aboard the Kidd is to combat piracy on the open sea.
Bolt said he helps design the tactical plans for Navy personnel to go aboard ships where mariners are in distress. Most missions, he said, involve sending two inflatable boats to approach and make a half circle around the vessel before U.S. sailors climb aboard using ladders.
When his team reached a hijacked Iranian dhow last week, Bolt was the fourth sailor to go on board.
"It's kind of an awkward scenario. There's controlled chaos because you're at sea on an inflatable boat. You're rocking, and you pull onside a ship that's rocking," Bolt said, adding that the Navy will order the pirates to show their hands and reveal their weapons.
Source: Stockton Record