"Sea Marshals'R'Us" inc.???

[bossi]

(I'd LOVE to be an "Sea Marshal" on a cruise ship ... and I've always had a soft spot for "pom-pom" guns ... maybe we should start up a business ... ??)

Nov. 5, 2005. 11:26 AM   
Pirates attack luxury cruise ship off Africa
Crew able to fight off smaller vessels

LONDON (AP) â ” Pirates fired a rocket-propelled grenade and machine-guns Saturday in an attack on the luxury cruise liner Seabourn Spirit off the coast of the east African nation of Somalia, the vessel's owners said.

One crew member was slightly injured before the attackers were repulsed, Seabourn Cruises said. The 10,000-tonne vessel was only slightly damaged.

The Bahamas-registered Seabourn Spirit, which is carrying more than 300 passengers, was 160 kilometres off Somalia when the attack took place early Saturday, said Seabourn Cruises spokesman David Dingle.

"The ship's crew immediately initiated a trained response and as a result of protective and evasive measures taken the occupants of the small craft were unable to gain access to the ship," Dingle said.

Dingle said the company had no reason to believe it was a terrorist attack and all the evidence pointed to pirates, who have been active in the area in recent days.

Press Association, the British news agency, said passengers were woken by the sound of gunfire Saturday as two 7.5-metre inflatable boats approached the liner and started shooting as their occupants tried to get on aboard. The injured crew member was reportedly hit by flying debris.

Seabourn Cruises said the Seabourn Spirit was on a 16-day cruise out of Alexandria in Egypt and was on its way to Mombasa in Kenya when it was attacked.

Dingle said the crew managed to remain calm, but "the passengers were somewhat surprised and shocked because it happened at 5:30 in the morning and they were woken," he explained.

"The passengers were mustered in a public room, told what was going on and reassured that we were fighting off the attack. They were shocked but no passengers were injured whatsoever."

The ship will no longer stop at Mombasa and will end the cruise in the Seychelles on Monday, he said.

 

[GO!!!]

Just heard that on CNN....I'm suprised it does not happen more often. Those things are like big, floating and unguarded......

the evidence would suggest otherwise.... !!

 

[Slim]

the evidence would suggest otherwise.... !!

Indeed...I know from knowing some security types on board those things that they're not quite as helpless as you would first think.

They don't hire flakes as security officers on those cruise ships, and the guys working on them do have some 'kit' to back them up.

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

Sorry, should rephrase. I'm surprised it didn't happen more often (again, due to the above mentioned impressions).

I guess they'll go back to boarding coastal freighters and cargo ships now.

They will board anyone they get the chance to board and those that are not vigilant enough to set and upper deck watch.

 

[Slim]

An update...

Nobody lost it' in attack

Cruise ship evades pirates

http://torontosun.com/News/World/2005/11/07/1296130-sun.html

Barbara Donaldson, of Cambridge, was getting ready for a morning walk around the deck of the cruise ship sailing off the coast of Somalia early Saturday morning when she heard an "incredible bang" above her.

Donaldson saw two fibreglass boats, seven to eight metres long, each with about five men aboard, 150 metres from the cruise ship. The men were holding rifles and rocket launchers, she said.

The ship's captain, Sven-Erik Pedersen told passengers over the intercom to stay in their cabins and get on the floor, away from windows, because the ship was under attack by pirates, she said.

There were 18 Canadians aboard the Seabourn Spirit -- six of them from Toronto and three from the Waterloo region -- on a 16-day trip from Egypt to Kenya. The other nine were from Calgary, Vancouver and Montreal.

Donaldson locked herself in the bathroom and sat on the floor. She could hear popping noises as the pirates shot at the navigation bridge of the ship.

Soon, the captain was back on the intercom. He told the passengers to evacuate their cabins and go to the dining room in the centre of the ship.

She said some people cried quietly but most people were quiet and surprisingly calm.

"Nobody lost it, but there were a lot of frightened people," Donaldson said last night on the phone from the ship in the Indian Ocean.

The pirates came "within feet" of the liner but didn't manage to board it, she said.

"One lady in the cabin across from us had a rocket fired right through her cabin window and narrowly missed her," said Mike Rogers of Vancouver.

None of the passengers were hurt. One of the 161 crew was injured by shrapnel. The ship was expected to reach Seychelles today.

The violent attack 160 km from the coast shows pirates in the region are becoming bolder in their efforts to hijack ships for ransom and loot, said Andrew Mwangura, head of the Kenyan chapter of the Seafarers Assistance Program.

"They are getting more powerful, more vicious and bolder day by day," he said.

The ship escaped the gunmen by shifting to high speed and changing course.

 

[GO!!!]

I'm sending out my resume today, and my expectations.

I want 99,700$ a year, a first class cabin and a quad mount .50, with a phalanx for backup.

I will then hire a bunch of my friends to be "cruise marines" and we will not only defend the ship, but give it such a reputation as being an "undsireable" target for piracy, that the pirates will set the compass to 3200 and f*** off as soon as they the flag.

Anyone else think that this sounds like a sound business plan?

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Then again, 10-20 pirates, 1000 passengers....I'm sure the could probably overpower the pirates.

The way 3 airplanes full of passengers overwhelmed a couple of dudes with box cutters a few years back?

 

[Scott]

Seems to me that there was one group of hostages that acted......

None of us can be sure what happened on those three other aircraft.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Seems to me that there was one group of hostages that acted......

None of us can be sure what happened on those three other aircraft.

\

Seems to me four minus one is three.... :

Anyway, point being if the writer of Seinfeld is powerless against guys with boxcutters, not sure I'm seeing the feasibility of 1000 pensioners taking on dudes with assault rifles and RPGs....

Might make a good Steven Seagal movie, though, he IS getting up there....

 

[Scott]

Here's the part of my post that you missed, Michael I am sorry that you didn't get it the first time.

None of us can be sure what happened on those three other aircraft.

Meaning that we don't know what the sequence of events was aboard those aircraft, it is possible that there was no way for the passengers to react. No matter, it is all speculation.

 

[Infanteer]

I'd say the mentality of being hijacked changed on September 11 - before you had 30 years of state sponsered terrorists flying planes to foreign airports and making demands.  Now you have religious fanatics using planes as cruise missiles.

Before, people would be passive as they were pretty sure they would survive.  Now, fight or flight will kick in right away as passengers fear they may become a permanent part of the skyline; flight is out of the question, so fight it is.  I think the 4th plane went down on 9/11 because cell phone calls revealed to those passengers what was going on in New York and D.C.

 

[Scott]

Good point and something I had the opportunity to discuss, at great length, not long ago.

How likely is it going to be that someone just allows a hijacking to go from start to finish, no matter what that finish may be, without some level of resistance?

How does the passenger identify the hijacker who wants to land and issue ransom orders as compared to the one who wants to make a very large statement ala 9/11?

Is anyone likely to believe a fella with a box cutter who says that you're going to land to have demands met or are people just going to act fearing the worst?

I would hate to compare 9/11 to the thread topic and I do not mean to, piracy and terrorism are two different things. What is everyone always told to do if they are robbed or car jacked? Stay quiet, don't be a hero and give them whatever the hell they want so that they go away as quickly as possible. One would think that a fella would believe a hijacker isn't just trying to grab handbags.

Just thoughts.

 

[Slim]

The way 3 airplanes full of passengers overwhelmed a couple of dudes with box cutters a few years back?

The passengers on the airplanes in question did not have assaut rifles and flashbangs on board to help them out...Cruie ships DO have that stuff...

Stay in your lane.

 

[Sheerin]

this is rather interesting...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4418748.stm

Passengers travelling on luxury cruise liners usually expect to be looked after by their ship's crew.

Yet pirates who tried to hijack a liner off the coast of Somalia met something a little more sophisticated than a warning shot across the bow.

The crew of the Seabourn Spirit quickly changed course and headed out into open water to evade the attackers in small boats who had raked the vessel with rockets and automatic weapons fire.

They also deployed a military-grade sonic weapon.

The long range acoustic device, or LRAD, is a high-tech loudhailer capable of causing permanent damage to hearing from a distance of more than 300 metres (984ft).

 

[Michael Dorosh]

The passengers on the airplanes in question did not have assaut rifles and flashbangs on board to help them out...Cruie ships DO have that stuff...

Stay in your lane.

Passengers get issued assault rifles and grenades?  Cool, which cruise line, and do I have to bring my own ammo?

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Good point and something I had the opportunity to discuss, at great length, not long ago.

How likely is it going to be that someone just allows a hijacking to go from start to finish, no matter what that finish may be, without some level of resistance?

How does the passenger identify the hijacker who wants to land and issue ransom orders as compared to the one who wants to make a very large statement ala 9/11?

Is anyone likely to believe a fella with a box cutter who says that you're going to land to have demands met or are people just going to act fearing the worst?

I would hate to compare 9/11 to the thread topic and I do not mean to, piracy and terrorism are two different things. What is everyone always told to do if they are robbed or car jacked? Stay quiet, don't be a hero and give them whatever the heck they want so that they go away as quickly as possible. One would think that a fella would believe a hijacker isn't just trying to grab handbags.

Just thoughts.

Exactly.   Which is why blanket statements like 2332's are kind of meaningless; identification of threats isn't so cut and dried, and even when it is, no one can predict beforehand what their reaction would be.   You can tell yourself you'd be a "hero" beforehand, but the proof is when the situation arises.

The guys on the "hero flight" obviously - as far as we know - found themselves capable of action.   They weren't successful at saving their lives; they were successful at diverting the plane from its intended target (again, as far as we know).

Slim, since this is "in your lane", what kind of security was available on the Achille Lauro a few years back, out of curiousity?

 

[Cloud Cover]

Mike: I think that was over 20 years ago. Time flys by.

After 911, I think a lot has changed on cruise ships. I was on a cruise a few years back with a bunch of Swedish university students, and they seemed like the type that would need armed protection, if you get my drift -a perfect target to enrage the white man.

 

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Mike: I think that was over 20 years ago. Time flys by.

After 911, I think a lot has changed on cruise ships. I was on a cruise a few years back with a bunch of Swedish university students, and they seemed like the type that would need armed protection, if you get my drift -a perfect target to enrage the white man.

 

We're drifting way off target....the original suggestion was that a cruise liner would be at an advantage because 1000 unarmed passengers could outnumber a dozen or so armed terrorists.  I have no doubt that the ship's security would be trained to handle stuff like that (well, I guess I'm back outside my lane again, but anyway....) but that wasn't what I interpreted the original statement as being.  1000 unarmed passengers would still face the same decisions that Scott talks about; and given terrorists with automatic weapons, in the numbers described in the original post, I have to believe there would be little anyone could or would do about it under normal circumstances.

So yes, I don't doubt security is trained, willing and able to react; I was responding to the notion that 1000 passengers (not security staff) would have some sort of advantage over a well armed terrorist cell.  I think it would be expecting too much to think they would be capable of much action.  If it turned out they were, or some were, well, bonus I guess, if they succeeded in doing anything that didn't endanger (or end) any of the passenger's lives or compromise any kind of armed response by trained professionals.

 

[Scott]

But I thought that in the case in which this thread is based that we were dealing with Pirates, not terrosists per se, I see a difference.

The fanatic wanting to use the jumbo jet as a cruise missile (Thanks for the term, Infanteer) is much different than the modern day Blackbeard who just wants booty or bounty or pieces of eight.

 

[GO!!!]

But I thought that in the case in which this thread is based that we were dealing with Pirates, not terrosists per se, I see a difference.

The fanatic wanting to use the jumbo jet as a cruise missile (Thanks for the term, Infanteer) is much different than the modern day Blackbeard who just wants booty or bounty or pieces of eight.

mmmmmmm eight pieces of booty