Cruise Ship Escapes Pirate Hijack Attempt

Associated Press ^ | November 5, 2005 | Rodrique Ngowi

[Clintonfatigued]

Pirates armed with grenade launchers and machine guns tried to hijack a luxury cruise liner off the east African coast Saturday, but the ship outran them, officials said.

Two boats full of pirates approached the Seabourn Spirit about 100 miles off the Somali coast and opened fire while the heavily armed bandits tried to get onboard, said Bruce Good, spokesman for the Miami-based Seabourn Cruise Line, a subsidiary of Carnival Corp.

The ship escaped by shifting to high speed and changing course.

[Tom Bombadil]

"We had no idea that this ship could move as fast as it did and (the captain) did his best to run down the pirates."

I would call that an effective evasive maneuver.

Kinda hard to board a 10,000 ton (displacement) ship that is focused on putting you under its' keel. Next time the pirates may want to make sure that they have enough coast guard approved life vests on their inflatable boats.

[The_Media_never_lie]

Maybe we should outfit some cruise ships in the Q-ship model:

Q-ship Program

It sure would be fun to watch the pirates get their just reward!

[M1thumb]

What's top speed of one of those ships? It can't be much more than 20-25 knots?

[xjcsa]

A friend of mine who works on cruise ships said (I think) around 30-32 knots.

[Arizona Carolyn]

When Geraldo was doing his around the world sailing trip 5 or 6 years ago they were attacked off of Iran or Nigeria (I forget which)... the pirates found out that his boat was heavily armed, but it came close to being an international incident. He had video of the whole incident when the Travel Channel showed the two-part series.

There has been quite a few pirate attacks/murders off of Central America and, of course, Indonesia.

[Arizona Carolyn]

that was what my husband suggested.. that they have them hidden so they don't frighten the guests, but have them with crew trained to use them. I'd be suprised if they were suprised since these ships have radar on board.

[Arizona Carolyn]

Probably madly packing his family to move back to the USA from France.

[Arizona Carolyn]

150? I thought there was over 300?

[Thank You Rush]

BTTT

[Dashing Dasher]

You rang?

[IYellAtMyTV]

What I'd really like to know is why a cruise ship was so close to the coast, relatively speaking.
The east coast of Africa and the approaches to the gulf are notorious for pirates.
The generally accepted practice is to maintain an offing of 200 miles.