On November 5th, 2005 a cruise ship named Seabourn Spirit was attacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia. It was an unusual target at the time, Somalian piracy was almost exclusively cargo ships at that time due to the smaller crews. The crew of the cruise ship repelled the attack using a long-range acoustic device, which generated a focused, painful noise that turned the pirates away.I was reminded of that this evening when I was reading through this French news article that showed the Seabourn Spirit as part of the recent NATO convoy through that region. The escorting warship is FS Nivôse (F732), and apparently French soldiers were dispersed onto the private commercial traffic to act as security against pirates.
Good pictures in that article, you gCaptain folks would enjoy the imagery alone. It is a reminder for those who get confused, NATO is not off the coast to fight piracy, NATO is escorting convoys of commercial ships and escorting the World Food Programme ship to Somalia for the UN. If you look through the latest Order of Battle, it is decieving to think of all those ships fighting pirates, because the truth is only about a half dozen are, while several stand off and watch ships that have already been taken captive.
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