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Hmmm? Pirates. Brendan, where was your dad on Saturday morning?
Your flippant "Arrrr" isn't funny, Brendan. The misery inflicted by these fiends is as horrible as any on earth. I generally love your humor, but I would no more react in this manner to pirates than I would to pedophiles, "Trix is for kids!".
Anyway, thanks for reading this. You are a good man.
Apparently the cruise ship was able to outrun them. From the article it sounded like the attackers were in Zodiacs. Those things are zippy; I wonder what speed the larger ship was able to do? They'd have to be going pretty damn fast...
The longer the ship, the faster it is capable of moving.
I was sound asleep in me trundle bed. I'm an Innocent man I tell'ee. :> [Not to say a Broken one on a Halifax pier... :] Arrr.
In the linked article a Passenger says that before Outrunning 'em, the cruise-ship Capting set a course for to Ram the scurvy sea-dogs. Run 'em down to Davey Jones, by Thunderrr. :)
Andrew - that applies to displacement hulls ... planing hulls do not have that limitation ...
With a sufficiently powerful engine, a Zodiac (inflatable dinghy) could conceivably go faster than a cruise ship ... of course, given the other characteristics and behaviours of a Zodaic, while it might be capable of going faster, the faster it goes, the less predictable the direction it goes in ...
I didn't get whether the pirates were in inflatables or conventional hulls ... I'm guessing conventional from the movements described, however ...
The longer the ship, the faster it is capable of moving.
That was true in 1750. Not so much today. As Alasdair pointed out, planar hulls avoid this. It's also empirically false, for while an aircraft carrier is fast (one of the fastest ships there is, actually) it can't outrun a 120 kt racing boat.
I read '25 foot inflatable craft' somewhere. That says Zodiac to me. Since they have so little of the craft actually in the water, they are pretty zippy.
The one advantage of the larger craft is that under full steam, it was probably capable of 50-100 times more power than the smaller boats. (guessing maybe 100-200 HP for the Zodiac engines, 10,000-20,000 HP for the cruise ship.)
Did anyone hear about the new pirate movie?
It's rated ARRRRRG!!
Does anyone know what a pirate's favorite kind of sock is?
ARRRRGYLE!!
Where do most pirates come from today?
ARRRRRGENTINA!!
I as a pirate am deeply offended by this kind of humor. Do NOT pass these jokes along!
If I were a pirate, I would be embarrassed if someone outran my dingy.
From what I understand, the ship has four major motors and propellers that can be used. Normally they only use one, sometimes two, and rotate through them to ensure there is no breakdown due to mechanics while at sea.
BUT, in extreme circumstances, such as Somalians re-enacting Pirates of the Carribean, they can hit all four and reach some serious speed. Maybe not quite as fast as a smaller vessel, but the cruise ship holds WAY more fuel. Only so long the Somalians could have chased before they risked a re-enactment of Cast Away.
*Have a friend who had a cruise ship gig. Apparently training to handle pirate situations is mandatory for crew!
Thanks, Lojo. // Does a Cruise crew have, like, any Small Arms aboard? Y'know, to Repel Boarders and that? (I suppose not. Unsafe. / Might facilitate a Mutiny. :)
Actually, A&A, you would be embarrrrrassed !
Lojo - what sorta company is it that provisions for a couple of spare engines in case their mechanics cause breakdowns while at sea ? Would't it be cheaper to get Scots (and hence better) mechanics (or, more precisely, engineers) ?
(innocent grin)
Joe - someone of celtic origins such as yourself knows fine well that the most effective way a cruise company has to repel boarders is by stopping changing the sheets and towels !
(silly Joe !)
(grin)
Oh - and it took a while for my subconscious to pass this up to the conscious ...
Briandot - the only planar hulls that I know are the stones we used to 'skip' over the surface of a lake or seaside to see how many 'skips' we could make 'em have before they sank 'neath the surface ... a planing hull is an entirely different beast ...
And a much prettier one, too, I must say ... you should see the futtock shrouds on a sailing vessel with a well-designed planing hull !
That was true in 1750. Not so much today.
I suppose you're right, given that I learned that fact in a sailing class, but I imagine it's more or less true for all displacement hulls.
Actually it appears the cruise ship was "armed" with a sonic defense weapon, similar to the crowd control devices used by the troops in Iraq.
What's really a shame is that the US Navy hasn't run a major counter-pirate operation in over 100 years, despite having the authority to attack pirates on the open seas. Now with all of our counter-terror operations in East Africa, you'd think we'd have some ships looking to get in some target practice.
Just some technical details, really:
The ship that was attacked by pirates this past Saturday was equipped with a non-lethal sonic weapon, which it used to fend off the smaller boats. The technology is known as a "Long Range Acoustic Device", or LRAD; this device was available "just in case" for crowd control during the Republican National Convention in NYC as well as in New Orleans after Katrina. (This is an interesting option for a cruise ship, although it's a reasonably large boat: The Seabourn 'Spirit' is a 10,000 tonne, 440 foot long vessel capable of cruising speed of 16 knots. The top speed is unknown, but with four diesel engines capable of a combined ~20,000 HP (ref.) it's probably not too small.)
Apparently the U.S. Navy boarded the ship and helped remove unexploded ordinance. Afterwards, passengers went on their merry way, sightseeing as usual.
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