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 ...
Pirate's creed: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES (nor due they require any law)
Uck. You couldn't pay me to take that trip.
What a lovely thought. A good coming of age activity for our young men and a great way to vent for pissed off femininsts. The feminists get to shoot men freely, getting some of that inner resentment out.
The Coast Guard has a 30 cal machine gun and a 50 cal sniper rifle on their drug helocopters. A 50 puts a nice hole in a boat or an engine.
There is one cruise line (which I can not name) that has a SWAT team on every one of it’s ships. It also has divers that are constantly under the ship guarding it at every port stop.
If more ships start fighting back, piracy won’t seem so attractive as a career choice.
“Tankers and ocean-going liners are very, very hard to sink like that.”
Hmmm...Remember the “unsinkable” Titanic?
> Hmmm...Remember the “unsinkable” Titanic?
(It was a bit before my time, but...)
IIRC the ice berg opened up its side across multiple water-tight compartments, making it difficult or impossible to isolate the leaks. I’m trying to imagine an RPG capable of doing that, and I just don’t see it.
As well, many tankers have double-hulls: one inside the other. The RPG might hole the outer hull, but the inner hull is probably going to stay intact.
Even so, an RPG would make an untidy hole, and I imagine it would cost a fortune to get it patched up and sea-worthy again.
If it’s an oil tanker, those are even more buoyant because oil floats on water, making an tanker full of oil extremely difficult to sink.
If I had to guess, all of this surrendering to the Pirates isn’t so much driven by their ability to sink the boat as it is their ability to damage the ship and/or kill or harm the crew, thus requiring claims to their insurance.
Now that's a hell of an idea. You could give prizes for the most killed, etc.
One hell of an rpg. Sure you don’t mean a harpoon or a sunburn?
First the French and now even the Italians have found spines to deal with the pirates. Too bad the US is too busy waving the white flag.
“Hmmm...Remember the “unsinkable” Titanic?”
The Titanic hit a freakin iceberg. One RPG hit would not sink a large ship. Remember it would have to hit at the waterline. 10 feet above the waterline would not sink the ship.
10 hits 10 feet above the waterline would not sink the ship.
Did you see pictures of the USS Stark. Holy Crap. That had a hole the size of a house in it and it did not sink.
The Titanic had a hole about 200 feet long below the waterline and it took about 2 hours to sink.
Shiploads of explosives would be required or torpedos.
I didn’t see it in the link but the female anchor on FOX this morning said it was a Israeli security team(civilian?). Can anyone confirm?
I would hope that a single gut-shot survivor from each boat could make it back to home port to tell the tale.
they ( the pirates ) were fired on and turn and ran, hmm, that works
RCCL does that but its a secret
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