U.S. authorities are weighing possible responses to the hijacking of a yacht carrying four Americans in the Arabian Sea, off the coast of Somalia.
A spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, Matt Goshko, says all relevant U.S. government agencies are monitoring the situation.
Officials say pirates commandeered the U.S. flagged yacht Quest off the coast of Somalia Friday.
The yacht is home to an American couple, Scott and Jean Adam, that has been sailing around the world since 2004 distributing Christian bibles in a variety of countries.
The hijacking comes a few days after a New York judge sentenced a Somali pirate to 33 years in prison for the 2009 hijacking of the Maersk Alabama container ship. A second pirate was shot and killed during an operation to rescue theMaersk's captain.
International naval patrols off Somalia's coast have had little success in stopping pirates from attacking ships in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean.
Pirates have made hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years hijacking and holding ships ransom.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
