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Bob Boosey: Maritime experience beyond the front line
London 30 October 2026 When the oil carrier Brillante Virtuoso sent a distress alert in the early hours of 6 July 2011, the immediate picture was alarming: a tanker on fire in the Gulf of Aden, its crew in danger and the cause of the attack unclear. ‘The moment the Brillante ’s Ship Security Reporting System (SSRS) was activated, it automatically generated messages that were delivered to various government and private-sector organizations. The alerts included the vessel’s name, position, speed, and status: “MV Brillante Virtuoso , IMO 9014822, Liberian flag at posn 1229N 04445E crse 140, 0.5 kts.” Within seconds, one such message arrived at the office of United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations , or UKMTO, in Dubai.’* Bob Boosey was called to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) office in Dubai. A Royal Navy officer with years of experience tracking piracy, he joined a response that depended on quickly gathering reliable information and getting it to the people who could act. The alert identified a vessel in a high-risk area. Bob began coordinating with naval forces across the region, including US and British installations in Bahrain and allied ships at sea. He shared what was known about the vessel, its flag, ownership and crew, while responding to questions from officers through military messaging channels. The ship’s international ownership and management arrangements made it harder to establish who needed to be contacted and which approvals were required. The crew list was eventually sent from Athens. Bob checked the crew were accounted for and passed on updates about the vessel’s condition. The USS Philippine Sea rescued the crew. With the reported attackers gone, the response then shifted to the burning, disabled tanker and the risks posed by its cargo. Bob tried to raise the Yemeni Coast Guard; salvage tugs and a team later reached the vessel. A response shaped by uncertainty There is an important distinction between what responders understood at the time and what was established later. The incident was initially treated as a pirate attack. In a 2019 judgment, however, the English High Court found that the attack had been staged as part of a conspiracy to bring about the vessel’s loss. The judgment is the authoritative account of the court’s findings but it doesn’t change what Bob and other responders were told during the emergency. Indeed, as Bob hurried to the UKMTO operations centre at 0300 that morning he did muse that the attack seemed very strange – Somali pirates never attacked at night. That distinction makes Bob’s role particularly instructive. In a live incident your response cannot wait for every fact to be verified. People have to coordinate rescue, communicate the best available information, navigate complex lines of responsibility and adapt as the situation changes. Bob was working in that space: turning an uncertain and fast-moving report into a coordinated response. Experience across Salama Fikira’s maritime team Salama Fikira’s maritime security capability draws on experience beyond the story more often associated with the company: Chairman Conrad Thorpe’s direct experience dealing with pirates. Bob brings a different but complementary perspective, shaped by naval service and maritime operations—including the UKMTO response to the Brillante Virtuoso incident. Maritime security calls for more than knowledge of an adversary. It also depends on understanding how naval forces, ship operators, security teams, insurers, regulators, port authorities and salvage providers interact when something goes wrong. Bob’s experience reflects the operational coordination and judgment required across those relationships. The Brillante Virtuoso response was not a simple case of identifying an attacker and dispatching help. It involved protecting a crew, managing a casualty at sea and coordinating across a web of international stakeholders—all while the facts were still unfolding. That experience is part of the depth Salama Fikira’s maritime team brings to its work today. *A fulsome and well regarded account of the investigation into the Brilliante Virtuoso - and Bob's role in responding to the initial 'attack' - is found in the book ' Dead in the Water: Murder and Fraud in the World's Most Secretive Industry ' by Bloomberg journalists Campbell and Chellel.
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