[Travis McGee]

See the pic at 39. Looks like a grapnel hook forward. I'm guessing their aim was a SEAL-style underway ship boarding, but they were spotted and the ship took evasive maneuvers early, not giving them a steady hull to hook onto.

Typically ships have low catwalks and entrances on their sterns, no more than 20 feet off of the water. The goal is to put a grapnel with a rope/wire ladder onto one of these, and send a fast boarding team up to protect this area while the rest board. Then they dash for the bridge, shooting anybody in their way, to commandeer the ship.

After that, it's anybody's guess if this was motivated by greed or Allah, or both.

But pirates who will rob and murder folks on 40 foot sailboats for their watches, cash, binos, electronics etc. would have hit a humongous payday on this ship. Their watches alone would be worth a million dollars. This would have been like knocking over Fort Knox or Las Vegas, by their scale of reckoning.

[SauronOfMordor]

Their watches alone would be worth a million dollars.

$1M divided by 302 passengers is about $3,300 per watch. I don't think all, or even most, of the passengers were the kind that walk around in $3K watches on cruises that go to 3rd world ports of call. Or any kind of real expensive jewelry. And I doubt that a watch that costs $3K in a boutique will fetch that much when pawned in the third world

On a small luxury yacht, the real prize is the yacht's electronics package (radio, radar, sonar, navigation, etc) that can be re-sold to third-world fishing boats. I would think that stuff that is on a major ship might not be the kind of stuff that fits well on a small fishing boat.

I think kidnap/hostage is more likely

[Squantos]

Might be the two top over the rail ladder hooks from a rope ladder or fixed ladder....

Agree 100% on the personal property prizes alone in excess of 1M. Add to that any high value passengers vs cheap tourist averaged and ya easily get a million in personal property taken.

Only then is personal data, hostage, terrorism etc an issue....that is either play or pay for the trash that did this.

Too bad one of these cruise ships doesn't take a MEF on a cruise.....:o)

But I suspect they had a point man inside before the raid that made a it's OK to visit call. Be they passenger or crew....it's possible I suppose.