How Do Cruise Ships Prevent or Protect Themselves From Pirate Attacks?
In: Technology
Hmm. Did you get your question from another thread maybe? https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/s/KeDt6iB1gb
Cruise ships a as big as cargo ships with one huge difference: the value of their cargo. A container ship for example with a few thousand 40footers is worth a lot more than passengers. Sad but accurate. It’s all about money even for pirates, Somali or otherwise.
I worked on a passenger ship many years ago. When sailing through dangerous waters, we kept the fire hoses unspooled and had patrols on deck 24 hours a day
My in-laws recently went on a cruise that went through pirate waters. They sent us pictures of the precautions the ship was required to take which included barbed wire on all the railing and exterior stairs, armed guards patrolling the muster deck and the passengers were strongly persuaded to stay inside the ship. That said, the precautions didn’t really affect them or their enjoyment of the cruise. The crew did a lot of thing inside the ship to keep everyone entertained and not thinking about what was going on outside.
Nobody has mentioned Sonar or water cannons yet. Google ‘Somali pirates attack cruise ship’ to see how ships have *actually* fended off pirate attacks.
The sonar arrays these massive ships carry can be focused on the pursuing craft. Directed sonar used like this is basically a sonic weapon. If you hear about ‘special sonic weapons’ used that’s what they’re referring to.
Water cannons mounted high up can be strong enough to make boarding extremely dangerous, knock people off of boats or even capsize the little speed boats that pirates use.
Finally, cruise ships are massive, with multiple layers of redundant systems. Firing rifles is ineffective. Even firing RPGs at these huge ocean liners is unlikely to cause enough damage to be dangerous (ive read of at least one case where a cruise ship took a dozen rpg rounds without serious damage). Boarding is the big risk, once they get on board and get hostages the situation can deteriorate rapidly.
I’m not a pirate, so I don’t know. But I assume there is little value abord in a cruise ship.
They would have to deal with a lot of passengers and I can’t imagine any cruise ship going country would tolerate mass hostage taking, special forces would be on board before long.
There are easier, less risky and more profitable options.
What type of weaponry would a large cruise ship have? I can imagine several snipers could be set up given cruise ships are relatively stable.
LRAD is used on many cruise ships. I did a tour of a royal Caribbean ship and they had one on board. There’s also documented use of the device by cruise ships.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-range_acoustic_device
I would imagine because they’re really really big and, you never know who could be taking vacation. Off duty Brazilian cop: *not today pirate scum*
I worked on cruise ships for years. In 2015 I was on a ship that passed through the Gulf of Aden (between Yemen and Somalia). These were smaller than average cruise ships so we were definitely a potential target. At our last stop before the gulf we picked up a handful of guys from a private security firm. They wrapped the back of the ship in barbed wire, had a sonar gun type of thing that looked like a small satellite which shoots a sound apparently so loud and directed that it ruptures the ear drums and leaves anyone it’s aimed at incapacitated. I’m sure the security contractors were also heavily armed though we never saw any guns.
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