Breaking News From Yahoo.Com! Experts: Cruises Vulnerable to Attacks
"Cruise lines say their crews and ships are well prepared for attacks like the one off the coast of Somalia this past weekend, when pirates fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns at the luxury vessel Seabourn Spirit. The ship safely evaded two pirate boats after using an earsplitting sonic weapon, changing course and heading out to sea."
As far as the cruise line is concerned, the incident is over: "As far as we're concerned, the incident is behind us. We are now in the next phase, getting people where they need to be and continuing with what we do for a living, which as make people happy on board," he [Seabourn spokesman Bruce Good] said.
But not so fast! -- "But security experts say that despite all the preparations, cruise liners remain vulnerable to attacks like this or the deadly bombing by al-Qaida-linked militants of the USS Cole in Yemen five years ago. The Cole was rammed by an explosives-laden boat in the port city of Aden; 17 U.S. sailors were killed and 37 were injured."
Don't miss the surprising word of caution!: "No ship apart from a naval vessel is really prepared to protect against a waterborne assault of the sort against the Cole," said Kim Petersen, president of maritime security consultant SeaSecure and a former cruise line security official. "Even those ships that are best equipped to cope with such a threat, in the case of the Cole, are in a difficult situation."
Read the whole article and judge for yourself. As for me, my next cruise will be on a naval carrier.
If at all.
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