NEWS: Attacked Cruise Ship Used 'Sonic Weapon' Against Pirates

The Miami-based Seabourn Cruise Line has claimed that the Seabourn Spirit escaped Saturday's pirate attack by using an 'earsplitting sonic device'. The sonic device or LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device) was developed as a non-lethal weapon for the US Navy after the USS Cole was attacked in 2000 and is used to prevent attacks from small boats



I was totally unaware that cruise liners carried any weapons at all let alone newly developed LRAD's!

Brilliant job by the captain for avoiding the attack and using the weapon successfully.

Hopefully other 'would be pirates' will take this as a lesson and avoid liners in ths future!

Lets hope that with this info given, that they will use additional methods to prevent boarding in the future.
Afterall, the pirates know to wear ear plugs now...

BTW... Did I hear that Adnon Kosoghi was originally a pirate? or was that a urban myth?

Here is another example of taxpayers money gone to waste. Im sure using Cliff Richard would have been alot cheaper.

Im sorry but this is funny as anything! FIrst of all the irony of pirates still running rampant cracks me up and then secondly, a beam of sound to get rid of the attackers is just priceless, I know it isnt supposed to be funny, and it really stinks that this still happens, I am glad the captain used quick thinking, but I cant stop giggling
The visuals Im getting are priceless- youve been voted yes for an awesome new article

PS
I also giggled that the congolese are eating pygmies

Pirates are no laughing matter mate...
the seas are a rough area, and if a group of pirates boards you, then you are toast...

if they would have been successful, then they would now own a huge cruiseliner to do evil deeds...
more likely though... they would rape and kill everyone aboard (yep, ,men also)
take whatever belongings that weren't strapped down... then scuttled it just to be sure there were no survivors...
that is a lot of death...

but the congolese eating pygmies is funny though... anyone can see that...

Oh I know Pirates aren't a laughing matter, I believe a few years back(2001), an Americas Cup winner was killed by a group of Pirates in the Amazon:

America's Cup champion Blake dead at 53

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- Masked pirates boarded sailing champion Peter Blake's yacht on the Amazon River, shooting and killing the two-time America's Cup winner when he tried to resist.

Blake, 53, was on a worldwide expedition to monitor global warming and pollution aboard his 119-foot yacht, said Alan Sefton, spokesman for Blake's organization, blakexpeditions.

[edit on 11/8/2005 by denial28]

I already see a bunch of raggedy pirates bouncing in the boat on the way to boarding a cruise liner wearing the ever so sporty Bose noise canceling headphones.

On the serious note the captain did a good job. It’s like clearing the pests out. Good going.

Originally posted by LazarusTheLong
BTW... Did I hear that Adnon Kosoghi was originally a pirate? or was that a urban myth?

I wouldn't doubt it. He was quite the Excitable Boy:

"Six Degrees of Adnan Khashoggi," Part 4
The 9/11 edition.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2001, at 3:31 PM ET


As Chatterbox previously noted (here, here, and here), Adnan Khashoggi is connected to every shocking event that has occurred since 1960, usually by no more than one or two degrees. A partial list would include Iran-Contra, Wedtech, BCCI, the Marcos Philippine kleptocracy, the Synfuels fiasco, and the discovery of buried mustard gas in the pricy Spring Valley neighborhood of Washington, D.C. To these we must now add the tragic events of Sept. 11.

Adnan

Screw that non-lethal bs, blow them out of the water and no more pirates.

Originally posted by Regenmacher
Screw that non-lethal bs, blow them out of the water and no more pirates.

Agree. If this is a war, merchant marine should be packing DP gun turrets and Coast Guard onboard.

Dress 'em like cooks if you have to keep 'em out of sight, and put smiley faces on the turrets.

I had a friend named Dr. Bob years ago who was attacked by pirates while sailing in the Phillipines- if he had not been armed with a shotgun, he would not have come home that time.

Originally posted by Chakotay

Originally posted by Regenmacher
Screw that non-lethal bs, blow them out of the water and no more pirates.

Agree. If this is a war, merchant marine should be packing DP gun turrets and Coast Guard onboard.

Dress 'em like cooks if you have to keep 'em out of sight, and put smiley faces on the turrets.

I had a friend named Dr. Bob years ago who was attacked by pirates while sailing in the Phillipines- if he had not been armed with a shotgun, he would not have come home that time.

Last I heard, the Lusitania was not boarded by pirates but sunk by a torpedo. Could be wrong, though.

Cruise ships with anti-ship weaponry would face difficulties going to various countries. Also, the risk / reward simply isn't there and neither is the cost effectiveness unless this starts becoming a daily occurence instead of a once-in-10-year news headline.

It's too bad they couldn't keep the sonic weapon out of the press......now all of the pirates will be forewarned, and will know to wear ear protection, or to shoot first and board afterward.........hope the cruise ships have something else up their sleeves.

About what Jeremiah said:

Cruise ships with anti-ship weaponry would face difficulties going to various countries.

Would those countries have said anything about the sonic 'device' if they had known about it?? Would they have considered it a dangerous weapon and refused entry because of it?

.