MY Le Ponant
IMO no. 8914219
The Le Ponant is a French sailing vessel, which is used as a cruise ship. The ship is operated by the French group CMA CGM belonging to Compagnie du Ponant.
Was built the ship in 1991 under the hull number 863-1 at the shipyard Société Française de Construction Navale ( SFCN ) in Villeneuve- la- Garenne near Paris. The three-masted sailing has a total area of 1500 m². As an additional drive the ship has a sixteen -cylinder, four -stroke diesel engine from Deutz with a power of 1680 kW, acting on a propeller.
The ship has four passenger decks accommodate 64 passengers can be accommodated in 32 cabins. The number of crew is 32 people.
Pirate attack in Gulf of Aden
On 4 April 2008 the ship on the way from the Seychelles to the Egyptian Alexandria in the Gulf of Aden was attacked by pirates off the Somali coast and kidnapped 30 crew members. Passengers were not at that time on board the ship, which was brought by the pirates in the region off the Somali province of Puntland.
On the day after the kidnapping, France sent the frigate Commandant Bouan, the 150 was under the multinational Combined Task Force use association in the region, in the waters off Somalia to follow the pirates. On April 7, also became the Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale ( GIGN ), a special unit for hostage rescue, sent to the region to forcibly if necessary to free the crew of the ship.
Furthermore, the helicopter carrier Jeanne d' Arc and the frigate Jean Bart were sent to the waters off Somalia. On April 11, a week after the hijacking of the ship, it was announced that the pirates had the crew of the ship, 21 from France, six Filipinos, a Cameroonian and a Ukrainian released. The freedmen were first received by the Jean Bart and later transferred to the French military base in Djibouti. For the release appears to be a ransom had been paid by about 2 million U.S. dollars. The French captain, who at first was still in the hands of the pirates, was released shortly after the release of the crew of soldiers of the French Navy, pursued the fleeing pirates ashore by helicopter. With the use of six pirates were captured, three other people were killed.