Pirates attack US cruise ship off East Africa

MIAMI - Pirates firing rocket-mounted grenades and machine guns tried to board a US-owned cruise ship in the Indian Ocean but the vessel carrying more than 300 people escaped and no one was hurt, its owners said.

Men in two small boats approached the Seabourn Cruise Line ship Spirit about 160km off the Somali coast, fired on it and sought to board the 10,000-tonne vessel in an apparent bid to rob the passengers and crew, cruise line spokesman Bruce Good said.

"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," Good said.

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

"There were some windows broken, nothing that affected seaworthiness," Good said. "The crew did an excellent job and those guys gave up. ... These guys didn't plan this too well." The cruise line's president, Deborah Natansohn, told CNN that the attackers used machine guns and rocket-mounted grenades.

Pirates are not uncommon off the Somali coast, but typically they target freighters that carry only a handful of crewmembers.

The Bahamian-registered Seabourn ship was on a 16-day cruise from Egypt to Mombasa, Kenya. It sailed on to the Seychelles Islands, where passengers were to disembark and fly to Mombasa, Good said.

Seabourn is headquartered in Miami and is a subsidiary of Carnival Corp, the world's largest cruise group.

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

He said authorities in the United States, United Kingdom and Seychelles were investigating.

The Somali coast is one of the world's most dangerous places. In October, Somali pirates captured a ship carrying food aid for the United Nations' World Food Programme and held it for two days before releasing the vessel, crew and cargo.

Earlier in October, pirates released another ship carrying relief food after it and its crew were held for nearly 100 days.

- REUTERS