HALIFAX — Crouched low to make for smaller targets, eyes up scanning for threats, 10 members of the naval boarding team are making their way towards a suspicious vessel.
Once their rib is aligned against the side of a ship, the Canadian Forces members start climbing a jumping ladder.
“This is one of the most dangerous parts,” explains lieutenant Tom Ionson, who’s leading the team into this training exercise. “It doesn’t look that dangerous because this ship is attached to the jetty but when we’re at sea the ship will be rising up and down and the jumping ladder will be relatively unstable, so we want to make sure there’s one person on it at a time and everyone’s paying attention to what they’re doing.”
Every Canadian Forces warship has a naval boarding team and their missions can vary from Search and Rescue to Counter Terrorism operations. The aim of the five day training session at CFB Halifax is to get members prepared for all of it.
“A little theory and a whole lot of practice,” says Petty Officer Douglas Lennips, a senior naval boarding party instructor. “We tailored some training towards what they can expect the ship to encounter, however the standard team training that all boarding teams go through is pretty much the same, so everybody is at the same level of preparedness.”
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The training is similar to a refresher course, with selected members going over weapons handling, transition drills and room clearing procedures. Taking a break from the baton and restraints training, Sub-Lieutenant Jamie Lawless explains that members are learning different techniques to stop suspects without resorting to deadly force.
“We actually do a lot of the training to each other, just so you get the idea of what it is like to inflict this sort of pain on somebody else,” she says. “You’re actually shot with almost like paint ball bullets, same with pepper spray, we get sprayed in the eyes.”
Still, they say the biggest challenge when boarding a ship is the unknown. Petty Officer Martin Harrisson has taken part in several boarding parties over the past five years. He says drug seizures can be especially dangerous.
“The risk is the unknown so you’re always in doubt, you’re always unsure of the security and what can happen,” he says. “”People just got caught so you’re uncertain what they can do or what they cannot do to get out of this situation so (…) it’s very dangerous and scary sometimes.”
That’s why he says this kind of training is crucial.
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