We here in the UAE are very interested in the 2011-12 Volvo Ocean Race.

For several good reasons: 1) Abu Dhabi is sponsoring one of the six boats in the round-the-world event; 2) Abu Dhabi is one of the ports o’ call during the race; and 3) the whole thing is just a lot of fun.

Six ultra-modern, ultra-sleek boats sailing more than 39,000 nautical miles, crossing every ocean, the bluest of blue-water sailing … to see who can turn the quickest nautical lap of the planet.

I believe we can make this an even more exciting event, however — and that’s where the pirates come in.

Let’s allow the six teams to deal with pirates … the real, live, modern-day pirates … on their own.

Here is what we do:

Instead of taking precautions, which this race is about to get into … in which the six boats will be picked up by some sort of mother ship at an undisclosed location (somewhere south of the pirate “hot zone” off the coast of Somalia in the Indian Ocean) and dropped off again near Abu Dhabi, only then to resume racing … we ought to just let the boats fend for themselves.

I’m serious. Well, kind of. Well, yes.

Hear me out.

When Magellan (or the handful of his crew who actually survived the trip) circled the globe nearly 500 years ago, he had to deal with pirates without a mother ship hovering nearby.

It was the same throughout history for all sailors, high seas and otherwise. The Mediterranean was for most of recorded history a hotbed of pirates, which the young United States discovered in the 19th century, dealing with the Barbary Coast pirates. (The Marine Corps hymn mentions “the shores of Tripoli,” referring to a punitive attack on north African pirates.)

No less a personage than the young Julius Caesar was captured by pirates in the first century BC. The pirates foolishly allowed Caesar to be ransomed, and he returned at the head of a fleet and crucified all of them. Well then.

It is no small accomplishment to flog a boat around the world, especially when racing five others, but it is lessened by this “hide from the pirates” thing, an exercise which my colleague at The National, Chuck Culpepper, explained in some detail here. 

Just let ’em sail, I say!

The Volvo boats boast the latest in technology, and have extensive dry-land teams in touch with them, too. If we are concerned about the competitors’ ability to elude marauding pirates, perhaps the ultra-cool tracker site (go have a look; really) should be disabled … and maybe it will be, in a few more days.

I bet our six brave crews could do a good job of eluding pirates and their speed boats. These are the best of the best sailors in the world.

And if we are concerned that pirate ships powered by outboard motors might be too much of a challenge for our wind-powered boats … well, I have an answer for that, too.

We can arm the Volvo boats, like the merchantmen and explorers of yore.

Organizers could stipulate a certain amount of weight be committed, on every boat, to “defense” measures. Talking guns and ammo here.

Maybe a small cannon? A Gatling gun? A dozen M16s and a grenade-launcher?

And each boat would be allowed to take along one “marine” — an expert in small weapons, to lead the defense of each boat.

Make each boat its own fighting platform. Then when the guy in the crow’s nest (or the one watching the radar) shouts out the approach of an unidentified ship, the crew could arm themselves.

Let’s see how interested pirates would be in taking on 11 guys with guns. We might even hear the immortal nautical expression, “Prepare to repel boarders!”

As popular as this race is, and it’s pretty seriously popular, imagine how much attention it would get while the six boats are sailing past Somalia. I would check in every half hour to see if pirates have tried to screw with the fleet. And if they had encounters, we would wait with bated breath to hear the details.

Imagine the boat’s captain calling in and describing the action almost in real time.

“Aye, we put a shot across the bow of the scurvy dogs and they turned and ran! Arrr!”

Oh, wait. “Arrr” is what the pirates allegedly say, like on International Talk Like a Pirate Day. 

OK, I’m just generically ticked off that pirates still exist, and still take hostages and even attack supertankers, from time to time. It gnaws at me that this great race goes to such extremes to avoid these losers. I believe the modern racing fleet could avoid them, and if they couldn’t … well, they could fight their way out.

Then have the modern-day Julius Caesar go to the pirate lairs and go all medieval (OK, Roman Empire) on their asses.