Cruise liner fends off pirate attack (Spirit)

[norm2002]

OK guys

 

You won't have seen these before. Now when I look at them I begin to shake. In one of them, the rocket is pointed at me.

 

As before, please do not publish these pictures anywhere as I have given journalistic exclusivity to Sky News.

 

 

 

 

 

 

See the smile on his face?

 

I have sold a few copies to passengers on the ship and am giving 40% of the gross proceeds to the crew welfare fund to show our appreciation for the way they have cared for us.

 

Please do not print these out. If you want copies, please email me and I will make them available by email or on paper when I return home so that the crew will benefit from it.

[Martita B.]

Norm~~~Good morning! Your idea of starting a "Crew Welfare Fund" is excellent! I would very much like to make a contribution. I will e-mail Deborah in the morning as to directing my check to the Spirit ship!

 

On ABC this morning a Mr. Ray Albers gave a live phone interview. Most interesting! But, again very scarey! He said Captain Pedersen was totally in control through out the attack.......we do indeed have the BEST of the BEST Captains! (and Crews)

 

Please keep your photos and your reviews coming......

REST today and EAT!

 

"Life may not be the party that we had hoped......but while we are here we might as well dance! And take pictures!"

Martita B.

[venicecruiser]

Norm - So glad you and everyone else onboard is ok. Your photos are incredible!

 

Claudia

[cruiseyguy]

I don't think sailing nearly 100 miles offshore is sailing "near" Somalia. What are they and the passenegers who booked this trip suppose to do-avoid the entire continent of Africa? Most folks don't want to live completely risk-free lives. How boring that would be! And if anyone deserves extra compensation, it's the crew and not the passengers.

[CruisinMatt]

Am I wrong or is the Spirit due for drydock in Singapore? If so, talk about good-timing!!

 

Norm - the pics are horrifying - looks like something you'd see in a violent movie. It's a good thing you were up so early on the computer and able to capture these, I certainly would have been sound asleep still working off too much wine from dinner.

[LovesCruisin]

Norm, thank you so much for posting these new pictures, especially knowing what you went through. I echo Martha - please rest up today, eat something, try to relax and know that you were in good hands. I personally want to thank you for keeping us here on CC informed. And NO - never ever post that it will be your "Last Post"!!!

 

I think the entire crew and most especially the Captain should be commended for the way they handled this most dangerous situation. I am sure they were trained in what to do in a dangerous situation but probably never dreamed they would have to fight off pirates..... really unbelievable to me.

 

And to those who are saying the cruise line was at fault, be real folks.

Look at the world today - I guess if a ship cant cruise 100 miles off a coastline for fear of pirates, none of us should be visiting London for fear of more bombings, or visiting Egypt to see the glorious Pyramids for fear of attacks on tourists, or visit the best city in the world - NYC for fear of terrorists attacking, shall I go on and on?

 

Folks, this makes me want to cruise Seabourn all the more.

[Martita B.]

Eva......thank you Girlfriend! I too will be booking a few more voyages on Seabourn next week!

 

Matt......Good Morning! Yes, the Spirit will go to Singapore and into drydock on Dec. 8th. She will be beautiful again and will be ready for her Christmas cruise on Dec. 22nd.

 

I just received an e-mail from Chef Labrecht's! He sounded "up and chipper!" I congratulated him on his "coming to the rescue" with 6:00 am

food and coffee yesterday........he is simply THE BEST!

 

MB

[tomtwice]

Norm,

UNBELIEVABLE pictures....well done...where did you take them from...was it your cabin?....could have been judging from the angle.... did you open the doors onto balcony to take them? or took pics through window? How fortunate that you were awake that early in the morning...and that your cabin was also on the Starboard side... anyway Norm, thanks for sharing these incredible photos with us all on this board...

I was on Spirit last year from Singapore to Cairns (the trip you missed!) and we also passed through pirate infested waters off Indonesia (why are pirates and infested always used together?) ...We had armed guards on duty after dark on both the bow and the stern...and also during daytime, though not armed (or I didnt see guns visible, probably didnt want to scare passengers)...we were luckier than you though, no incidents at all...

Were there armed guards around yesterday Morning? If so, how come they didnt return fire? On TV tonight they said that Crew used Water Canon....is this correct...

Keep up the good work Norm... love looking at your pics and your reports...

and I cant wait to follow you on Safari next week..hope you can find an internet connection in the Bush...

tt

[garycarla]

Come on folks.

 

Assuming the reports are right and they were 100 miles off the coast, I do not think the slamming of Seabourn is just. And, as most of you know, 12 miles off the coast of any country is international waters as well.

 

Seabourn did what they needed to do. This can happen just about anywhere in the world. Seabourn went out of their way to offer refunds. I am sure there some that wish they had been on this cruise so they could get their $20k back and take another one.

[uk1]

A lot of this is sanctimonious. At what point are Seabourn fans actually going to accept a possible fault at a possible face value and stop attacking those that simply state what to the outside world be obvious. People nearly died here!?! They deserve at least to have intelligent questions asked.

 

Norm, (hate to disappoint you - but I've already seen one of these pictures - or very similar in today’s uk papers, but) good luck with the cash raising. The staff of the ship deserve all you can raise, having been taken into such danger by a negligent cruise line and an either compliant or negligent captain . And genuinely good to see you are all safe.

 

Intelligent people question and debate in an open minded way, so ignoring all the waffle and concentrating on the facts. some clear questions need asking and answering by those that either know or think they know. Allowing for the language differences between the UK and US about what constitutes a "hero" and how the abuse of such a term denigrates and insults all genuine “heroes” I must say I have many questions that I hope to see answered. And I remind people, asking questions isn’t illegal or un-nice.

 

Very few people, even those on board know all of the situation (as the Irish debacle previous bought up by some Lord or other) but there are some puzzling aspects to this. I genuinely mean this, I thought it was a hoax when I read that this ship had sailed into these waters and had been attacked, I could not believe it had gone there. For the sake of brevity I’ll summarise my initial questions.

 

1. When the Captain was given the sailing schedule by Carnival, was he in any way shape of form concerned that he would be sailing into Somalian waters. If so what did he then do? If he wasn’t concerned then does he now feel sufficiently knowledgeable to be in command of this ship?

 

2. If he was concerned then what was the exchange of views from then on between him and Carnival that convinced him to sail there?

 

3. Where was he? We are told that he was 100 miles offshore. If so where did the “inflatables” come from?

 

4. It seems to me that the outcome of this was fairly finely balanced. In no accounts so far published does it state that the crew armed themselves appropriately to meet the attack by automatic fire and rocket launchers, so were the crew armed proportionately to the threat?

 

5. What happened. We’re told by people on board that rockets holed the ship (Edith Laird "on board" said three) and messed up a suite. The UK director “Dingle” says this wasn’t true. If it is true why do spokespeople continually make untruthful statements when Seabourn are in trouble?

 

5. If the ship had been holed below the water line by the rocket launchers what would the Captain have done? Would he have put the passengers into the life boats or would he have headed to land. If so “what land”.

 

I hate to repeat myself, but whilst being relieved by the outcome, I think we owe it to ourselves to be a little bit more inquisitive about this situation.

 

Jeff

[sgriff17]

1. When the Captain was given the sailing schedule by Carnival, was he in any way shape of form concerned that he would be sailing into Somalian waters. If so what did he then do? If he wasn’t concerned then does he now feel sufficiently knowledgeable to be in command of this ship?

 

2. If he was concerned then what was the exchange of views from then on between him and Carnival that convinced him to sail there?

 

3. Where was he? We are told that he was 100 miles offshore. If so where did the “inflatables” come from?

 

4. It seems to me that the outcome of this was fairly finely balanced. In no accounts so far published does it state that the crew armed themselves appropriately to meet the attack by automatic fire and rocket launchers, so were the crew armed proportionately to the threat?

 

5. What happened. We’re told by people on board that rockets holed the ship (Edith Laird "on board" said three) and messed up a suite. The UK director “Dingle” says this wasn’t true. If it is true why do spokespeople continually make untruthful statements when Seabourn are in trouble?

 

5. If the ship had been holed below the water line by the rocket launchers what would the Captain have done? Would he have put the passengers into the life boats or would he have headed to land. If so “what land”.

 

I hate to repeat myself, but whilst being relieved by the outcome, I think we owe it to ourselves to be a little bit more inquisitive about this situation.

 

Jeff

 

1) How is 100 Miles off of the coast "somali" waters??

 

3) I'd imagine they were launched from a larger "mother" ship.

 

4) That's a good question and one that I have always wondered?

 

5) You could "what if" this to death. You could say "what if" to almost any situation in life...the fact of the matter is it happened and how are they going to prevent it in the future.

 

What IF something happens to a ship sailing to Labadee in Haiti? What if terrorists target a mega-cruise liner like the ROTS? What if, what if...etc...

 

Let's look at facts, not what if's, almosts, and could haves...

[safein]

Norm,

 

Those pics are truly amazing and frightening. The other pic you posted made it look like the men wore masks. Now that you showed these pics, you could see their faces. Passengers and crew were lucky to have a Captain like the one on the Spirit at the helm.

 

Before anyone gets into a further tither as to why didn't management know or change their itinerary, it's an unfortunate sign of the times. From Norm's pics, the pirates could have come from anywhere on the Indian Ocean!!!!! Yes, it is disturbing that a country has not had a government since 1991. But you would isolate an entire region, meaning the Indian Ocean and the coast of Africa as not worth cruising to. Attacks like this on a passenger vessel is a total rarity. There have been other cruises that have gone by there in the past without incident, so it's very hard to predict where, when and IF pirates will attack.

 

Forgive me for ranting on, but I worked in the shipping industry for 12 years and I heard about pirating incidents and they were not in a specific area. You cannot predict the pirates' activity.

 

Let us not make anymore judgements here on a cruiseline's management but thankful that everyone is safe, unharmed, and hopefully, ready to sail again.

 

Anita

[English Voyager]

Re the acoustic wave blast device,a report in one of our national newspapers states:

" The Unitd States Air Force Institute for National Security Studies describes the technology as ' energy generation from a pulsed laser that will project a hot,high pressure plasma in the air.It creates a blast wave with variable but controlled effects on hardware and troops.'

American forces have developed these ear-splitting weapons to deter small boats from approaching its warships and it has been used against hostile crowds in Iraq,"

[cruiseyguy]

According to an article in today's Guardian Online (which may contain as much fiction as fact) one passenger is quoted as saying that the pirates' "mother ship" sent out a false SOS in an attempt to lure back the Spirit after it had successfully evaded the attack boats. The Captain wisely ignored the phoney SOS.

[hvsteve1]

These pirates who chase cruise ships are like dogs who chase cars,they would be sorry if they ever caught one.

 

An article in the London Daily Mirror several years ago said that Cunard was hiring retired members of the Naval Special Forces and British Gurkha regiments to act as secuirty forces on their ships, It's my understanding that other lines have followed suit and that the security people on my recent Radisson cruise were Gurkhas. These are some of the most feared warriors on earth and would,I have no doubt,be prepared to lay down their lives to protect their ships. I also would think any ship would have a number of military veterens on the crew and cannot believe that,somewhere in the bowels of the Spirit,was not an arms locker that was not used in an effort to keep the incident from escalating into an out-and-out firefight.

[Rebecca R]

Hi, I'm writing in the hopes someone can help me contact a passenger who witnessed this attack on the Spirit. It sounds like the captain and crew did a wonderful job in the face of adversity; I'm hoping to speak with a passenger who can tell me what happened and how the ship's crew handled the situation. This is for a possible interview on CBS. Please email me if you can help at resnickr@cbsnews.com. Thank you!

[uk1]

These pirates who chase cruise ships are like dogs who chase cars,they would be sorry if they ever caught one.

 

 

Hardly,

 

Two weeks ago, they (or their friends) seized a Ukranian cargo ship in the same waters and demanded a £400,000 ransom. The 22 man crew have just been released. Last month a group of these "pirates" released a UN ship carrying Tsunami relief after 100 days.

 

Currently the Panagia - a Maltese ship is being held for a £300,000 ransom. It was a matter of luck that the pirates were unable to board THIS TIME, but I guess they'll be better prepared next time.

 

I guess those making personal attacks think that this is a perfectly reasonable background for this ship to be taken into these waters.

 

An article in the London Daily Mirror several years ago said that Cunard was hiring retired members of the Naval Special Forces and British Gurkha regiments to act as secuirty forces on their ships, It's my understanding that other lines have followed suit and that the security people on my recent Radisson cruise were Gurkhas. These are some of the most feared warriors on earth and would,I have no doubt,be prepared to lay down their lives to protect their ships. I also would think any ship would have a number of military veterens on the crew and cannot believe that,somewhere in the bowels of the Spirit,was not an arms locker that was not used in an effort to keep the incident from escalating into an out-and-out firefight.

 

I think if Seabourn had either the fine British Ghurkas or the contents of the arms locker you mention then they would have chosen this moment - if any and got them out for this attack.

 

Jeff

[norm2002]

According to an article in today's Guardian Online (which may contain as much fiction as fact) one passenger is quoted as saying that the pirates' "mother ship" sent out a false SOS in an attempt to lure back the Spirit after it had successfully evaded the attack boats. The Captain wisely ignored the phoney SOS.

 

This is what the Captain believes to be true. He has told us he did receive such a call.

[flamboyant 1]

Fantastic info provided by Norman!!! Great photos you took.

 

An excellent crew handle this non-routine situation very well. I enjoyed reading this thread and cannot wait to get onboard one of the Seabourn yachts.

[bldsld]

Norm,

 

Thank you for sending those amazing photographs. and we are all truly relieved that everyone is well. We also heard your interview on the local news here in San Francisco (specifically the CBS affiliate).

 

Look forward to catching up with you when you return.

 

Denyse

[flamboyant 1]

Fantastic thread, great photos and statements by Norman.

 

Excellent handling of a non-routine situation by the crew. I can't wait to get onboard one of the Seabourn Yachts.

[MattInFLL]

Thank you all for such wonderful posts... I was supposed to try out Seabourn this year, but life intervened and I found myself in a mid-life career change and am going to law school... so no cruises for me anytime soon!

 

But after reading this, I would still sail with Seabourn in a second...

 

And I hope I never become a lawyer who thinks like some of these posts. Just like the absurd law suit bred McDonald's coffee cup warning about "careful, contents might be hot..", I do not want to see a warning on my cruise ticket: "careful, life is sometimes dangerous". And then not be able to sail the area from Cape Horn to Indonesia because the cruise operators are afraid of law suits.

[CruiserJen]

Norm,

 

Hard to fathom that those pirates were actually 100 miles off the coast in such a small boat!

 

The smile on the pirate's face tells the story... thank you so much for sharing your photos and info with everyone. Very noble of you to donate some money to the welfare fund.

 

Very pleased that everyone is safe. This is definitely a wake-up call for many of us who have been looking for increasingly exotic locations to explore and an industry so eager to please its customers.

 

 

Jen

[wripro]

i think the best way to judge seabourn is not by the fact that the Spirit was attacked while sailing 100 miles off the somali coast but by the superb way ib which the captain and crew handled the situation. no one can predict where trouble will strike (including New York, London, Madrid....should all travel companies stay away from all cities as well?) it's how one responds to the situation and protects the passengers that is the important criteria. and on this front i give Seabourn an A+. I hope this never happens to any other cruise ships but if it does we can only pray their captains and crews react with as much presence of mind as did those on the Spirit.

 

I board the Legend four weeks from today and cannot wait to make another booking on board.

[sandbag7]

Matt:

After 30 years if practicing law and almost 20 years of cruising, my advice is:

Cruise!