At around 3am on Tuesday, Abdinur Haji, a Somali fisherman, boarded his small boat in the Indian Ocean port of Harardhere and headed out to secure his catch of the day. As his boat left shore he became aware that, anchored three miles off the coast, was a "very, very" large vessel. "I have been fishing here for three decades," he told a reporter. "But I have never seen a ship as big as this one."

The vessel dominating the skyline was the Sirius Star, an oil tanker hijacked the previous day by Somali pirates in what must rank as one of the most daring maritime heists the world has seen. The Saudi Arabian-owned vessel - at 330 metres from bow to stern, or the size of three aircraft carriers - is the largest ever raided at sea.