A Durban man says he was lucky to be able to tell the tale of a weekend pirate attack on his cruise ship off Somalia’s coast, the Mercury website reported on Tuesday.
Charles Forsdick described how some passengers had to throw themselves to the floor to escape bullets.
He said one woman had survived a blast that ripped through a room as she was taking a bath. Other passengers had dodged flying bullets by dropping to the floor.
Passengers had been lucky to escape with their lives, said Forsdick after the ship docked in the Seychelles.
He and his wife, Elizabeth, were among six South Africans travelling from Egypt to Kenya aboard the Seabourn Spirit when it was attacked by five heavily armed men who tried to climb aboard.
Bob Meagher, of Sydney, said he had been awoken by a commotion outside his cabin door. He had seen men travelling in a white-hulled boat shooting at the ship.
”My wife said, ‘Look, they’re loading a bazooka,’ which we later discovered was called an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade launcher].”
One crew member sustained light injuries from shrapnel.
The ship’s captain saved the 151 passengers and 161 crew from serious injury when pirates attacked the luxury liner with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
After an attempt to ram into one of the 8m pirate boats, Capt Sven Erik Pedersen changed direction and sped away from the attackers.
Seabourn’s Gauteng office confirmed that two of the six South Africans were from Cape Town and the other two from Gauteng. — Sapa