Intense training gives naval boarding parties international respect
Members of Canada's naval boarding parties don't mess around.
In a large building at Work Point, a former army base in Esquimalt now used by the navy, a group of 20 sailors undergo self-defence training required for naval boarding parties. Under the watchful eye of Master Cpl. Mike Janssen, the sailors learn how to use elbow strikes - a skill that might become necessary when boarding a foreign vessel where terrorists and related contraband might be hiding.
"As you're hitting, you come down and through," Janssen says as he motions an elbow strike to his students.
A military police officer who doubles as a national use-of-force instructor, Janssen instructs his students how to use their whole body when inflicting an elbow strike in a manner similar to a Thai boxer.
Dressed in blue uniforms, ball caps and combat boots, the sailors are split into two groups. One group holds large, thick pads up against their chests to protect themselves from the elbow strikes.
"Stop - get back," the other group yells as they aggressively move toward sailors posing as opponents.
In a similar scenario, the sailors conduct the same exercise using batons instead of elbows.
"It's awesome, it's very physical. Every day is interesting," Able Seaman Grant MacDonald says after he puts his baton away.
Petty Officer 1st Class Scott Morley, senior naval boarding instructor, oversees the training. A 23-year veteran of the navy, Morley has taught naval boarding parties for the past three years.
"It's very exciting. It has multiple dimensions to it," he says.
Aside from learning about how to apply a use of force with batons, elbows and other strikes, sailors learn how to use MP-5 submachine-guns, 9 mm pistols, 8-70 shotguns and pepper spray in close quarter battle situations. They're taught maritime law, how to handcuff someone, rules of engagement, legal issues around detaining suspects and interview techniques.
"It's law enforcement-based training," Morley says.
The sailors are also taught how to climb and repel shipboard containers.
Two containers, one on top of the other, are situated in the building at Work Point so sailors can learn how to conduct a search as has happened in the past on United Nations missions in the Persian Gulf.
"Our job with the United Nations is to search the containers," Morley says.
The boarding party instructors receive training from a variety of agencies including military police, Canada Customs, military lawyers and the companies that manufacture the weapons used by the boarding parties.
To ensure realistic weapons training, sailors use bullets made out of soap manufactured by a company known as Simunition. Sailors actually shoot the soap bullets at each other in mock situations.
"It's high-tech law enforcement paint ball," Morley says. "It takes law enforcement and the military to a whole new level."
While the soap bullets aren't lethal - they're not painless.
"It hurts like hell," he says.
While Morley is a boatswain by trade, naval boarding parties consist of sailors from various trades as specializations such as communications operators and engineers are needed for certain tasks.
Each destroyer and frigate in the Canadian navy has a naval boarding party of 18 crew members and two officers. Team members work in their primary trade until the ship enters a theatre of operation, Morley says. Then the team members focus on training as boarding parties or actually boarding ships.
"Typically they board up to several vessels a day," he says.
Canada's naval boarding parties have boarded more than 10,000 vessels since the navy began participating in international coalition missions in the Persian Gulf and Adriatic Sea in the early 1990s. Boarding parties are also kept busy searching vessels suspected of transporting illegal refugees off Canada's coastlines.
Naval boarding parties occasionally have to take an aggressive approach to boarding a vessel. When one "uncooperative" vessel with boarded windows and doorways sailed toward Iranian waters on one occasion, Canadian sailors were forced to use sledge hammers to get inside of the ship.
"We had to enter the vessel through drastic means," Morley adds.
But members of the navy's boarding parties have never had to fire any shots at anyone while boarding a ship, he says. Although there have been cases of broken legs, sprained ankles, heat exhaustion and contaminated clothing, no Canadian navy boarding party member has yet been seriously injured.
The boarding parties' activities aren't restricted to entering a vessel at gunpoint and searching for terrorists or related contraband. The groups also aid in search and rescue efforts as well as providing humanitarian aid.
The high level of training and the inclusion of humanitarian-related practices has garnered the Canadian navy's boarding parties an excellent reputation around the globe, he says.
"It turns out that some of the countries prefer the Canadian style of boarding," Morley says. "We've made a name for ourselves."
