It was on June 30 that the bulk carrier Golden Arsenal (IMO: 9493212) departed from the Port of Aden in Yemen, all set for its journey to India.
However, the journey of that merchant vessel, carrying the flag of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, might have been cut short if pirates' attempt to board it near the Gulf of Aden had been successful.
The ship had been carrying critical cargo headed for the V.O.Chidambaranar Port in Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu, and also had one Indian crew member onboard, an ANI report said, citing sources.
When pirates tried to board the ship on Wednesday night, the crew reportedly locked themselves in a safe room, and sent distress signals to the authorities.
The Indian Navy, which has a dedicated anti-piracy force in the area, was reportedly the best equipped to respond, and hence deployed rapidly.
It was the INS Trikand, the Indian Navy's frontline guided missile frigate, that responded to this distress call, and rushed to the scene, foiling the boarding attempt in the process.
Indian Navy Marine Commandos (MARCOS) then boarded the Golden Arsenal and conducted a thorough sanitisation operation, the report added.
This comes hours after the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), which tracks maritime activity, reported an incident in the Gulf of Aden on the same day, about 76 nautical miles south off the coast of Yemen's Balhaf.
Upgrading its alert from yellow to red, the maritime tracker later identified the incident as an illegal boarding, and said that there had been four pirates onboard the small craft, armed with RPG.
"Unauthorised personnel caused damage to the bridge and several adjacent compartments (of the boarded ship)," the UKMTO wrote in its red alert, warning that the small vessel remains active in the area.
