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The Golden Child
11-05-2005, 04:10 PM
NAIROBI, Kenya - 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.

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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.

"These are very well-organized pirates," said Andrew Mwangura, head of the Kenyan chapter of the Seafarers Assistance Program. "Somalia's coastline is the most dangerous place in the region in terms of maritime security."

The attackers never got close enough to board the Spirit, but one member of the 161-person crew was injured by shrapnel, cruise line president Deborah Natansohn said.

The vessel's 151 passengers, mostly Americans with some Australians and Europeans, were gathered in a lounge for their safety, Good said. None were injured.

"Our suspicion at this time is that the motive was theft," Good said, adding that the crew had been trained for "various scenarios, including people trying to get on the ship that you don't want on the ship."

The British news agency Press Association said passengers awoke to the sound of gunfire as two 25-foot inflatable boats approached the liner.

Edith Laird of Seattle, who was traveling with her daughter and a friend, told the British Broadcasting Corp. in an e-mail that her daughter saw the pirates out the window.

"There were at least three rocket-propelled grenades that hit the ship, one in a state room," Laird wrote. "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."

The Spirit was bound for Mombasa, Kenya, at the end of a 16-day voyage from Alexandria, Egypt. It was expected to reach the Seychelles on Monday, and then continue on its previous schedule to Singapore, company officials said.

The 440-foot-long, 10,000-ton cruise ship, which is registered in the Bahamas, sustained minor damage, Good said. The liner, which had its maiden voyage in 1989, can accommodate 208 guests.

"They took some fire, but it's safe to sail," he said.

There has been a steep rise in piracy this year along Somalia's nearly 2,000-mile coastline, with 15 violent incidents reported between March and August, compared with just two for all of 2004, according to the International Maritime Bureau, a division of the International Chamber of Commerce that tracks trends in piracy.

In June, a U.N.-chartered ship carrying 935 tons of rice for Somali victims of the Asian tsunami was hijacked by pirates, who held crew members hostage for three months before releasing them.

Somalia has had no effective central government since opposition leaders ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. The leaders then turned on each other, transforming this nation of 7 million into a patchwork of battling fiefdoms ruled by heavily armed militias.

___

Associated Press reporter Jennifer Kay in Miami contributed to this report.

wish there was a smiley walking the plank ..

HyPer50
11-05-2005, 05:28 PM
LMAO sell one of the rocket launchers and buy you a motor for the boat and you might have a chance haha...

Brett
11-05-2005, 08:50 PM
Yeah read that on CNN this morning, Crazy shit

MachNU
11-05-2005, 09:15 PM
Its Bush's fault! :lmfao: ;)

Negrodamus
11-05-2005, 10:13 PM
The Philippines, Thailand and the Maylasian islands are notorious for pirates. Never heard of african pirates but i bet that'd be funny to see.

Pher
11-06-2005, 05:15 PM
Read that about 20 minutes ago in the paper. Thank god it wasnt a huge cruse liner because they would have had no chance to get away.

Vuongy_Dong
11-06-2005, 05:34 PM
Saw this on paper too. Pretty bad ass.

DerrickT
11-06-2005, 08:16 PM
ARRRRRRG lol

thats bad ass. i can't believe they still exist.

i4_garage
11-06-2005, 08:19 PM
urh..... :confused: ...... ..asian pirates????!!! :eek: ......i don;t think they can afford a motor boat..or else there would be more FOB in america..... :lmfao:

Stormhammer
11-07-2005, 03:33 PM
I wanna be a pirate.... only I want a biiiggg ass pirate ship, and some of them old school cannons - oh oh and a pirate outfit and be like ARRRGGGHH PULL OVER AND LET ME BOARD YE!

and yes Asian pirates - ever see how many junkers they have? there was a news article once where two of them did a hijack - one of them equipped with a quad-40

JMCIVIC01
11-07-2005, 03:36 PM
DAMN THATS INSANE

neontuner95
11-08-2005, 07:49 AM
Yeah thats crazy!

Jaimecbr900
11-08-2005, 08:52 AM
Here's the story from AOL news. There's a video link in there too.

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20051105072209990008&ncid=NWS00010000000001

BlueHatch
11-09-2005, 10:00 PM
boortz said these particular "pirates" were actually muslims trying to carry out an attack on 2000 americans who were on the ship