Cruise ship thwarts pirates off Somalia

From combined dispatches

MIAMI — Pirates firing rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons tried to hijack a U.S.-owned cruise ship yesterday off the East African coast, but the vessel carrying many American passengers escaped, its owners said.

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 161-member crew gathered the 151 passengers into a central lounge away from windows and decks during the attack, the company said.

“I looked out of the window and saw a small boat with about five people in it about 20 yards away,” said Norman Fisher, 55, a passenger.

“They were firing the rifle and then fired the rocket launcher twice. One of the rockets certainly hit the ship. It went through the side of the liner into a passenger’s suite.”

Mr. Good said that the attackers probably wanted to rob the ship.

“The crew responded with a trained response that they do to keep people from getting on the ship. They managed to evade them, repel them and keep them off the ship,” he said.

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

“There were some windows broken, nothing that affected seaworthiness,” Mr. Good said. “The crew did an excellent job, and those guys gave up. … These guys didn’t plan this too well.”

The Spirit’s passengers included 48 Americans, 22 from Britain, 21 Canadians, 19 Germans, 19 Australians and six South Africans. The others were mostly from other European nations, Mr. Good said.

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

Edith Laird of Seattle, who was traveling on the ship with her daughter and a friend, told British Broadcasting Corp. TV 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 stateroom,” Mrs. 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.”

Canadian Mike Rogers told CNN Radio affiliate CKNW in Vancouver that the pirates were armed with machine guns and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

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