Luxury Cruise Ship Outruns Pirate Attack

TopGunner

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http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/12/01/pirates.cruise.ship/index.html


(CNN) -- A 30,000-ton luxury cruise ship outran pirates off the coast of Yemen this weekend, the ship's owner said Monday.
File image of the Nautica in Sydney Harbor

The Nautica was in an area patrolled by international anti-piracy task forces when two small skiffs appeared to try to intercept it, Oceania spokesman Tim Rubacky said.
The ship took evasive maneuvers and accelerated to its full speed of 23 knots or 27 mph. One of the smaller craft closed to within 300 yards and fired eight rifle shots at the cruise ship, he said, but the ship was able to pull away.
It was the first report of a pirate attack on a passenger ship of its size this year, said Cyrus Mody of the International Maritime Bureau, which runs a piracy reporting center.
"There have been a couple of passenger yachts hijacked, but they were much smaller," he said. It is "quite common" for pirates to target ships the size of the Nautica and even larger, he said, but they tend to be cargo ships, not passenger vessels. Map of pirate activity in the area »
The Nautica escaped without damage or injury to its 684 passengers and 400 crew, and arrived safely on schedule in Salalah, Oman early on Monday morning, Rubacky said.:eek:
 
:eek: I thought pirates were just in the movies - I can't believe there are really pirates still out there in this world. I keep picturing Johnny Depp, but in reality, this was probably a terrifying event and I'm glad they got away safely and no one was injured.
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Piracy off the Yemen and Somalia coasts have been escalating for the past 5 or so years. A Chinese freighter was hijacked a couple weeks ago and has been in the news a few times. These pirates are growing more and more brazen. Whats even more intersting to me is the new defense systems being employed by some cruise lines, such as a supersonic cannon.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/29/pirates/index.html
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2005-11-07-cruise-blast_x.htm
 
They are lower-scale terrorists, really; I saw on the news that Somalia is becoming the next country -as-terrorist-breeding ground; the next Afghanistan/Pakistan.

Whenever you have an unstable country like that, and terrorists move in with nothing done about it; they start recruiting the vulnerable, impoverished and disenfranchised young men, and wallah! They have an identity and a purpose. It starts out as survival, then an identity, then action.

In this case the piracy can be very lucrative indeed - can you imagine the money going to the terrorist groups there.
 
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Piracy off the Yemen and Somalia coasts have been escalating for the past 5 or so years. A Chinese freighter was hijacked a couple weeks ago and has been in the news a few times. These pirates are growing more and more brazen. Whats even more intersting to me is the new defense systems being employed by some cruise lines, such as a supersonic cannon.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/29/pirates/index.html
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2005-11-07-cruise-blast_x.htm

I have heard (no pun intended <LOL>) that the supersonic cannon if quite effective. Myself....I would add some old fashioned gunnery turrets...fire on cruise ship...boom boom, problem solved.
 
I have heard (no pun intended <LOL>) that the supersonic cannon if quite effective. Myself....I would add some old fashioned gunnery turrets...fire on cruise ship...boom boom, problem solved.

That's what I've always thought. Why not just blow them out of the water? Some of these countries are paying ransom to get their crew and freighters back. That's only going to get them bigger boats and bigger ammunition. Just get rid of them.
 

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