MIAMI (Reuters) - Pirates firing rocket-mounted grenades and machine
guns tried to board a U.S.-owned cruise ship in the Indian Ocean on
Saturday but the vessel carrying more than 300 people escaped and no
one was hurt, its owners said.

Men in two small boats approached the Seabourn Cruise Line ship Spirit
about 100 miles off the Somali coast, fired on it and sought to board
the 10,000-ton vessel in an apparent bid to rob the passengers and
crew, cruise line spokesman Bruce Good said.

"The crew responded with a trained response that they do to keep people
from getting on the ship. They managed to evade them, repel them and
keep them off the ship," Good said.

The 161-member crew gathered the 151 passengers into a central lounge
away from windows and decks during the attack, he said.

"There were some windows broken, nothing that affected seaworthiness,"
Good said. "The crew did an excellent job and those guys gave up. ...
These guys didn't plan this too well."

The cruise line's president, Deborah Natansohn, told CNN that the
attackers used machine guns and rocket-mounted grenades.

Pirates are not uncommon off the Somali coast, but typically they
target freighters that carry only a handful of crewmembers.

The Bahamian-registered Seabourn ship was on a 16-day cruise from Egypt
to Mombasa, Kenya. It sailed on to the Seychelles Islands, where
passengers were to disembark and fly to Mombasa, Good said.

Seabourn is headquartered in Miami and is a subsidiary of Carnival
Corp., the world's largest cruise group.

The Spirit's passengers included 48 Americans, 22 from the United
Kingdom, 21 Canadians, 19 Germans, 19 Australians and six South
Africans. The others were mostly from other European nations, Good
said.

He said authorities in the United States, United Kingdom and Seychelles
were investigating.

The Somali coast is one of the world's most dangerous places. In
October, Somali pirates captured a ship carrying food aid for the
United Nations' World Food Program and held it for two days before
releasing the vessel, crew and cargo.

Earlier in October, pirates released another ship carrying relief food
after it and its crew were held for nearly 100 days.