British firm BCB International, whose advisers include former Special Forces soldiers, has developed the £15,000 Buccaneer Launcher System which it claims can keep pirates at bay.

Dubbed the "Somali Stinger", it is a small cannon which uses compressed air to  fire projectiles hundreds of yards across the sea.

And as a last resort ship masters can fire a "shell" packed with golf balls which will travel up to 600 yards at up to 450mph across the sea and bombard the pirate craft.

But the Buccaneer can also be used to rain a wide range of "ammunition" onto pirates, including  smoke grenades, paint pellets, nets, ropes to entangle their propellers and ice.

The system will be unveiled at next month's Seawork Show in Southampton with pirate attacks off East Africa on the increase, though the Royal Navy says they are being disrupted or defeated more frequently by the multinational naval force in the danger zone.