Pirates Seize French Yacht and 30 Crew off Somalia

There were no customers on board, a spokesman for the tour company said, adding that most of the crew are French.

Pirates have taken over a French luxury yacht with 30 crew on board off the coast of Somalia, the boat's owner said on Friday.

Luxury sailboat the Ponant was heading from the Seychelles to the Mediterranean Sea when pirates stormed it in the Gulf of Aden, which lies between Somalia and Yemen, said a spokesman for the boat's owner, the Compagnie des Iles du Ponant.

There were no customers on board, a spokesman for the tour company said, adding that most of the crew are French.

"We have been informed that pirates are on board. We are in close contact with the Foreign Ministry," said Guillaume Foucault, of the Compagnie des Iles du Ponant, which is part of the CMA-CGM shipping group.

France Info radio said the French Navy had lost contact with the yacht, adding that surveillance aircraft had been diverted to the area and a ship from the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom was heading towards the site of the attack.

The French Foreign Ministry said in a statement it was verifying reports of the attack.

"The Ministry for Foreign and European Affairs has received information which suggests that a cruise ship and its crew, some of whom are French citizens, were victims of a piracy operation in the Gulf of Aden," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Pirate attacks regularly disrupt shipping off the Somali coast, according to the International Maritime Bureau, which reported some 31 cases of piracy in the area in 2007.