Posted on 04/26/2009 2:03:38 AM PDT by Jonny foreigner
ROME — An Italian cruise ship fended off a pirate attack off the coast of Somalia, with its security forces exchanging fire with the bandits, the commander said Saturday.
Cmdr. Ciro Pinto told Italian state radio that six men in a small white boat approached the Msc Melody and opened fire Saturday night, but retreated after security forces aboard the cruise ship returned fire.
Domenico Pellegrino, head of the ship-owner Msc Cruises, told ANSA news agency that all 1,500 passengers and crew aboard the Melody were safe, and credited Pinto for his "cool-headed" handling of the incident.
The attack occurred about 180 miles north of the Seychelles. The ship was on a 22-day cruise from Durban, South Africa, to Genoa, Italy.
ANSA said the ship was now headed as scheduled to the Jordanian port of Aqaba.
Pirates have attacked more than 100 ships off the Somali coast over the last year, reaping an estimated $1 million in ransom for each successful hijacking, according to analysts and country experts.
Another Italian-owned vessel remains in the hands of pirates. The Italian-flagged tugboat Buccaneer was seized off Somalia on April 11 with 16 crew members aboard.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Shoot ... and ask questions later.
Hell, sounds like a great idea for a vacation trip to me. Get a bunch of ex-grunts and wannabees together, hire a cruise ship and go trolling for pirates.
At some point the Somalis will sink a tanker or cruise ship with an rpg. Then the question will be, where was Obambi.
Good.
“At some point the Somalis will sink a tanker or cruise ship with an rpg. Then the question will be, where was Obambi.”
With the messiah in office, they will still blame Bush.
yes very good news. Lets hope that at least some of the pirates did get killed during this fight.
We should be issuing letters of marque, and allowing privateers to troll for pirates while armed with heavy machine guns and TOW missiles.
LOL!!!!
Sounds like fun
> At some point the Somalis will sink a tanker or cruise ship with an rpg. Then the question will be, where was Obambi.
I doubt it is possible. Many of those big vessels have double hulls, and most of them have multiple watertight compartments. They might make a big hole in the vessel, but the crew should be able to isolate that particular compartment, close off the watertight doors and pump out any extra sea-water that has gotten in. Tankers and ocean-going liners are very, very hard to sink like that.
But the same question “where is Obambi?” would definitely be asked if the RPG was fired into the ball-room and 20 passengers got blown to bits.
There ya go!
They have cruises for knitting clubs. Cruises for cancer survivors.
Time to have a cruise that specializes in gun lovers. And their guns, of course!
But the same question “where is Obambi?” would definitely be asked if the RPG was fired into the ball-room and 20 passengers got blown to bits.
See how that works?
This catch-and-release concept for pirates is a sick joke. Apparently, tho’, that happened last week because it was against the law in the Netherlands to hold the pirates once they were captured.
I would be in favor of hanging the pirates from the battleship’s yardarm.
Used to be able to shoot clays off the aft section of a cruise ship . Long gone now .
unfortunately not only the netherlands release them. Also the Germans,the US.... did exactly the same several times.
no wonder you see this catched pirate smiling all over his face. if i would be a pirate i guess i would be laughing too when you can see how stupid the so called “western” world behaves. just for the record. we send them financial aid to buy weapons, we send them food to feed the pirates of tomorrow.. and finaly we send them unarmed ships (protected by our proud navys who are not allowed to do anything) to make buisness.
You would need twenty RPG’s, and know where to, and...maybe...a fire...would eventually..
A few semi auto rifles firing from the stable heights would be enough to put holes in their fiberglass, and themselves. For them, however, hitting a ship from a bouncing, pitching small boat is possible, somewhere, but hitting a person or a target on the ship would be impossible.
You could more or less stand out in the open on the ship and from the combination of poor marksmanship and being on a little boat they would never hit you. Meanwhile for you, it’s ‘hand me another magazine’.
It would suck to be a hundred miles out in the shipping lanes in a sinking small boat. Maybe bleeding.
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