I know it’s a little difficult to believe, but “Luxury yachts offer pirate hunting cruises” is a headline currently emanating from the Ananova news site. Shiver m’ timbers… is this serious?! Here’s the full article:
Luxury ocean liners in Russia are offering pirate hunting cruises aboard armed private yachts off the Somali coast.
Wealthy punters pay £3,500 per day to patrol the most dangerous waters in the world hoping to be attacked by raiders.
When attacked, they retaliate with grenade launchers, machine guns and rocket launchers, reports Austrian business paper Wirtschaftsblatt.
Passengers, who can pay an extra £5 a day for an AK-47 machine gun and £7 for 100 rounds of ammo, are also protected by a squad of ex special forces troops.
The yachts travel from Djibouti in Somalia to Mombasa in Kenya.
The ships deliberately cruise close to the coast at a speed of just five nautical miles in an attempt to attract the interest of pirates.
“They are worse than the pirates,” said Russian yachtsman Vladimir Mironov. “At least the pirates have the decency to take hostages, these people are just paying to commit murder,” he continued.
Link to the Wirtschaftsblatt is here but my Austrian isn’t good enough to even find the relevant article, let alone provide a translation. Perhaps someone reading could help with that?
Paul Johnson is Editor of A Luxury Travel Blog and has worked in the travel industry for more than 30 years. He is Winner of the Innovations in Travel ‘Best Travel Influencer’ Award from WIRED magazine. In addition to other awards, the blog has also been voted “one of the world’s best travel blogs” and “best for luxury” by The Daily Telegraph.
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7 Comments
here’s the deep link to the story @ WirtschaftsBlatt
Aha… OK, thank you. The critical bit appears to come at the end of the article. Suspected satire.
This sounds fishy…kind of fun, but I am not sure I would pay money to be in danger.
Wow….Sounds like an interesting vacation. How would I explain this one to my wife. Honey, I have a great idea, lets vacation off of the coast of Somalia with a bunch of mercenaries. Might need to bring a little extra dough for the ammunition, want me to sign you up for the AK or the rocket launcher………
Sounds a lot like Shock Tourism to me. Paul, are you sure this is Luxury Travel. Surely the luxury yachts are merely to be used as bait to draw out the pirates? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_tourism
If you note the comment above, it looks like this was just someone’s idea of a joke.
thank goodness that is a joke i was beginning to think the world had gone mad!
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here’s the deep link to the story @ WirtschaftsBlatt
https://www.wirtschaftsblatt.at/home/lifeandstyle/timeout/379211/index.do
GREAT ARTICLE!
Aha… OK, thank you. The critical bit appears to come at the end of the article. Suspected satire.
This sounds fishy…kind of fun, but I am not sure I would pay money to be in danger.
Wow….Sounds like an interesting vacation. How would I explain this one to my wife. Honey, I have a great idea, lets vacation off of the coast of Somalia with a bunch of mercenaries. Might need to bring a little extra dough for the ammunition, want me to sign you up for the AK or the rocket launcher………
Sounds a lot like Shock Tourism to me. Paul, are you sure this is Luxury Travel. Surely the luxury yachts are merely to be used as bait to draw out the pirates?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_tourism
If you note the comment above, it looks like this was just someone’s idea of a joke.
thank goodness that is a joke i was beginning to think the world had gone mad!