Luxury yachts offer pirate hunting cruises

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?