Fighting off Pirates

If you're a merchant sailor off the Horn of Africa it seems like you can't avoid pirates. The rest of us can't avoid reading about them. Today I saw some suggestions for how sailors might deal with these guys. The methods range from sci fi to cartoons. Here's an annotated rundown:

Fire Hoses and Water Cannons
The idea is to nail the pirates while they're in their boat, but as the article so adroitly points out, water, even high pressure water, is no match for a bullet.

Molotov Cocktails
My personal favorite. Seems to dispel a notion ingrained into anyone who has watched a movie about sailing: a sailor's biggest fear is fire aboard ship. It would make sense to lob flaming bottles of gas and whatnot onto the pirate ship, but a Chinese crew engaged pirates in this manner on deck! They were being shadowed by pirates (imagine that!) long enough to prepare enough empty beer bottles with gas to tie pirates up on deck for six hours! Long enough for the Malaysian Navy to send in the big guns.

Noisemakers
Aka "sonic weapons." The idea is, burst the eardrums of these bastards as they pull alongside.

Bright Lights
Kind of like the noisemakers, but aiming for the eyes. Temporarily blind the suckers with a flash from a high-powered light source.

Slippery Foam
This one seems the flimsiest to me, like someone has been watching too many Three Stooges shorts. One of the premises this seemes to rest on: the pirates are barefoot. I don't know about you, but I do not want to be hosing the deck down with slippery shite while these guys are coming aboard with guns!

There were some others, including ringing the hull with electric fencing or even plain old barbed wire, and throwing nets in the path of the pirate craft in the hopes that they will entangle their propellers (seriously). Firearms don't seem to be a realistic option, unless the sailors are explicitly trained in their use.

So, if you were out there, off the coast of Somalia, what would you want in your anti-pirate arsenal? Take the poll or, better yet, take the poll and leave some comments.