The crew of a Chinese ship have described how they used beer bottles and water cannon to fend off a pirate attack off the Somali coast before they were rescued.

Zhenua 4 was one of four vessels seized by pirates on Wednesday, shortly after the UN Security Council authorised countries to pursue the renegades by land and air.

Nine pirates armed with rocket launchers and machineguns boarded the ship, Xinhua, the Chinese state-run news agency, reported.

The vessel’s thirty crew members fought for four hours with home-made firebombs and beer bottles, an official with the China Maritime Search and Rescue Centre said.

The pirates abandoned their attempt to take the ship when a multilateral force, including a warship and two helicopters, arrived after the crew had locked themselves in their cabins and radioed for help.

“Seven of the nine pirates landed on our ship, all with weapons,” Peng Weiyuan, the captain of Zhenhua 4, said in a telephone interview with China Central Television.

“Our crew, who had been well trained and prepared, used water cannon, self-made incendiary bombs, beer bottles and anything else that could be used to battle with them.

“Thirty minutes later, the pirates gestured to us for a ceasefire,” he added. “Then the helicopter from the joint fleet came to help us.”

Pirates have carried out more than 100 attacks on the shipping lanes of the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean this year, earning themselves as much as $120 million (£80 million) and costing the shipping industry dearly.

At least 16 ships are being held for ransom close to the pirate lairs of Eyl and Haradheere. Among them are the Sirius Star, a Saudi supertanker loaded with $100 million of crude oil, and the Faina, a Ukrainian cargo ship carrying 30 Soviet-era tanks bound for southern Sudan.

The reports from the Chinese crew come as Beijing said that it would send a warship to the Gulf of Aden to join international efforts to curb the pirates.

The Chinese announcement that it would join the fight against piracy was greeted enthusiastically by the head of America’s Pacific Command.

Admiral Timothy Keating said it would lead to a revival in military relations between China and the United States.

“I hope the Chinese do [send ships to the Gulf of Aden] and we’ll work closely with them,” Admiral Keating told reporters.

“I think this could be a spring-board for a resumption of dialogue between PLA \ forces and US Pacific Command forces,” he said.

China suspended military contacts with the US in October in protest over American arms sales to Taiwan valued at $6.5 billion (£4.3 billion).

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