Sarah Kanowski

So 14 of us would be in a Seahawk helicopter.

We would drop a 90-foot rope.

You're not clipped into that rope.

You're holding on.

And if you fall to the deck, you'll probably die.

If you fall into the ocean, you'll probably drown.

So either that's one of our ways to get on board, the other way is a fast attack boat and we throw grappling hooks up with caving ladders and while that ship is underway, going as fast as it can, we're climbing up the side of the ship and taking control.

The smugglers on board those ships are trying to get oil out of Iraq and sell on the black market.

They know we're coming.

They expect that we're coming.

It's our team, a British Marines team and a US Navy SEAL team

So what they do is they're shutting their ship from the inside and locking it with padlocks.

They have false steering compartments, so even if we get control of the bridge, they'll be steering from somewhere else.

But the most frightening thing is they will have booby traps in the worst scenarios.

And the booby traps are there to blind us, kill us, blow our limbs off, do everything they can to stop us taking control of their ship.

It's a very, very...

tense diplomatic situation because you can only legally board the ship when it's in international waters.

And as soon as a smuggler knows that we're coming, they hear the helicopter or they see the boat, they will as quickly as they can try to go back into the nation state waters of a nearby country.

If we're caught on board at that point, we're technically pirates.

So the first mission, you know, I've just turned 18 by this point.