Prison ship ships at sea, claiming legal authority to do so. In 2009 the US Navy converted the main deck aboard the supply ship into a brig to hold pirates captured off the coast of Somalia until they could be transferred to Kenya for prosecution. The brig was capable of holding up to twenty-six prisoners and was operated by a detachment of Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit. Charles Dickens' novel "Great Expectations" opens in 1812 with the escape of the convict Abel Magwitch from a hulk moored in the Thames Estuary. In fact, the prison ships were largely moored off
Peter Gerald Charles Dickens the Dickens Fellowship, a worldwide association of people who share an interest in the life and works of Charles Dickens, and was President of the Coastal Forces Association. With his wife, Mary Alice Blagrove (the daughter of Rear-Admiral Henry Blagrove), he is the grandfather of the actor Harry Lloyd and uncle to the actor/performer Gerald Charles Dickens. Dickens died in 1987 at Tunbridge Wells in Kent. Peter Gerald Charles Dickens Captain Peter Gerald Charles Dickens DSO, MBE, DSC, RN (6 April 1917 – 25 May 1987) was a Royal Navy officer during World War II and a great-grandson of novelist