PARK CITY — Ben Bailey has tried to stay informed about the pirate situation involving the Maersk Alabama, which was attacked by pirates 350 miles off Somalia on April 8.

The 21-year-old is a shipyard management student at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, NY.

“We’ve really been watching it more since this happened,” he said, sitting on the couch in his parents’ living room while watching CNN. Ben visited his parents this past weekend.

News of the pirate attack is probably of more interest to him than it is to most. Ben has encountered pirates himself. The incident occurred in January.

“I was involved in what was considered to be a questionable encounter. It wasn’t deemed an attack on the vessel,” he said.

His ship was passing through the Gulf of Aden when it occurred.

“We were approached by five small vessels with men in them who were dressed in all black,” he said. “These vessels came very close to the ship. At one point we thought they were coming alongside.”

Ben has been instructed by the academy not to provide a lot of details about his pirate experience.

“I can tell you we were not fired upon and no hooks were thrown. No one came on board. So it was deemed a close encounter,” he said.

When the crew noticed the pirates approaching the ship, they radioed a warship in the area and help was sent.

“We were approached on a couple of different occasions,“ he said. “This incident being the most serious, which is when they got the closest.”

Many people probably never thought modern-day pirates existed until the most recent situation involving the Maersk Alabama. Usually, when the word pirate comes up in conversation, the image of Blackbeard or some other historical figure comes to mind.

Unless a person works in the maritime industry, Ben said, the average person wouldn’t think there was any such thing as a modern-day pirate.

But as a Merchant Marine cadet, Ben and his classmates receive training on what to do during situations involving pirates.

“The first thing they tell you is don’t let them come aboard,” he said, with a laugh. “We also learn about what the Navy is doing about the pirates as well.”

Merchant Marine ships are never armed, and unfortunately, pirates know this. What they don’t know is which ships are American and which ones are not. Ships never fly their flags when they are steaming through an ocean.

Without any weapons on board, Merchant Marine crews don’t have much at their disposal for defense. What they do have is a well-trained crew in self-defense, large fire hoses and the LRAD or long-range acoustic device, which admits a high frequency sound.

“It’s an awful noise,” Ben said.

The LRAD is used to drive pirates away.

He pointed out that most Merchant Marine ships are quite large and move rather slowly.

Ben’s ship was 650 feet in length and traveled at approximately 19 knots or 21 mph.

“First of all, you’re not going to outrun them,” he said. “These guys were in, I would say, 16 feet to 18 feet speed boats. Your hope is that you can kind of just keep going (before they catch up with you).”

Until the Maersk Alabama incident, pirates haven’t really been all that threatening.

“They are forceful. They carry AK-47s. They are not exactly saying, ‘Can we come on board and say hi?’ But at the same time, they haven’t really been executing hostages,“ Ben said.

The pirates rob ships and sometimes take hostages who they hold for ransom.

“If you are steaming through the Gulf of Aden, you’ll see these huge groups of these little fishing boats. What these pirates do, they … hang out in the middle of these crowds, so when they see a ship coming along that’s when they break out. It’s sort of their camouflage,” he said.

That’s why it is so hard for the Navy to locate them.

“They all look like fishermen,” he said. “And every boat has to be considered a fishing vessel until weapons are found on board.”

The Navy is not allowed to chase the pirates once they make landfall.

“They are not allowed to chase the pirates into the country because they are bringing in so much revenue and paying off so many people,” Ben said. “They (the pirates) just go to shore and jump off their boats and they blend in like any other citizen.”

The days in which a ship may come under attack by pirates can sometimes be predicted.

“They do not go out during rough weather. They only attack during the day and only in nice weather,” he said.

When news of the Maersk Alabama situation first broke, Ben’s dad, Joe, received an e-mail from the academy letting him know that there were no Kings Point cadets aboard.

Joe is president of the Kentucky, Tennessee and Indiana Parents Association for the academy. It is his job, once the school notifies him of something, to send out a mass e-mail to parents of cadets living in those states.

Those e-mails put a lot of minds at ease.

“We were relieved, but again we knew it was Merchant Marine people involved so it hits close to home,” Joe said.