Tourists tell of pirate attack

"I was awake doing some work when I heard what sounded like a crack from outside at 5.50 am," passenger Norman Fisher said.

"I looked out of the window and saw a small boat with about five people in it about 20 yards away.

"One of them clearly had a rifle. Later I realised that two of them had rifles and one had some kind of rocket launcher," he added.

The 10,000 tonne Bahamas-registered vessel was sailing towards the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa, Kenya, on a 16-day cruise out of Alexandria, Egypt.

Mr Fisher said the captain, Sven Erik Pedersen, tried to ram one of the pirates' speedboats in an attempt to capsize it and stop them getting aboard.

"The captain didn't sound the usual alarm because he was worried that people would run up on the deck thinking it was a fire, and that would be the worst place to be," Fisher explained.

"Instead he made an announcement at five past six, saying: 'Stay inside, stay inside, we are under attack'."

After repelling the pirates, Pedersen explained the situation to passengers and was greeted with a round of applause, he added.

"It was all a very surreal experience, not the kind of thing you expect on a cruise," Fisher recalled.

Barman Richard Fuller described the situation as a "very, very terrifying experience".

"A lot of the guests are a bit nervous still," he told BBC News 24 television. "The guests that were in the suite that was hit are very terrified, but apart from that we are all okay."

Deborah Natansohn, president of Seabourn Cruise Lines, said that one person suffered minor injuries but the remaining passengers and crew of the vessel were "doing very well" and heading towards the Seychelles.

Regarding whether the Miami-based company would continue cruises in the area, she told CNN television: "We're obviously evaluating the situation now and we'll take that decision at a later point."

Natansohn described the attack as a "highly unusual incident".

She added: "We don't know of any other time where a cruise ship has been attacked by pirates. They generally tend to (attack) tankers and freighters that have very small number of crew on board."