If they see it coming, maybe. The pirates are sneaky and will sometimes slip up to the ship at night in a small skiff, come alongside, and climb aboard before anybody knows what’s going on. Next thing the guys on the bridge know, there’s a couple of Somalis with AKs standing next to them.
These pirates get a hold of some fairly high-grade weaponry on the black market. Assault rifles, machine guns of various sizes, RPGs...we’re not talking a pistol and a cutlass here. They have firepower that can kill a lot of people quickly. Yeah, they’re not sailing around in a 32-gun ship like 300 years ago, but they don’t need to.
}:-)4
Massachusetts Maritime Academy grads aboard ship
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090408/NEWS11/90408003/-1/NEWS01