US Navy destroyer collision

[TwoBlocked]

Originally Posted by sailpower

When viable, that was an O-6 command so your answer is no,

Arm chair Master Mariner, aye.

Sorry, I don't understand your post. Maybe misinterpreted the previous one, too.

[Randy]

Originally Posted by sailpower

When viable, that was an O-6 command so your answer is no,

Arm chair Master Mariner, aye.

His statement is referring to the main gun incident on the Iowa. The reporting of the investigation did in fact become a joke.

[TwoBlocked]

Originally Posted by Randy

His statement is referring to the main gun incident on the Iowa. The reporting of the investigation did in fact become a joke.

Might be best to wait for sailpower's explanation. I am confused by the references to whether I personally had USN O-5 or O-6 commands. I don't see that as pertinent, both whether I had USN commands and whether they were O-5 or O-6. But perhaps it is pertinent for what sailpower is trying to say. That is what I do not understand. If it is some rank pulling ploy, well that speaks for itself.

[TwoBlocked]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Yes I could very well have been lost with that damage without immediate action . They were most likely under condition yankee which means some spaces that are not normally accessed would have been sealed . However as I have learned from various sources they sustained severe damage to a berthing space and at least one machinery room being ( open to the sea) .
That in and of its self would cause the ship to display the down by the head and the list.
Without sealing the compartments that are open to the sea they would have definately lost the ship. Imho ( Thankfully it has been many years since I have had to use my skills in that respect)

Thanks for the reply! You remind me that a compartment with "free communication with the sea" affects stability much worse than one partially flooded with free surface, which isn't so great either...

Merchant ship are of course built and manned very differently than military ships. They have very different missions. Merchant ships do not have berthing below the main deck, for instance. They also have strict requirements for watertight bulkheads. They have to, because in case of major damage, the ship has to "save itself". The manning is inadequate to do much more than transfer ballast.

I find it interesting that the need for below deck berthing and passages through watertight bulkheads on military ships also allows them to be better prepared to execute damage control - more seaman, more equipment, more training.

I hope nobody reads this as one type of ship being "better", only different. There are many aspects to this tragedy that we all can learn from. Vessel seaworthyness after damage is one.

Does anyone remember the story of the world's largest minesweeper?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeton_incident

"On July 24, Bridgeton collided with a mine at a position of 27°58' north and 49°50' east, 13 miles west of Farsi Island. The explosion caused a 43-square-meter dent in the body of the oil tanker. Bridgeton slowed, but did not stop. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy warships took station in the tanker's wake, allowing the big double-hulled ship to break trail."

[TwoBlocked]

Here is an interesting blog on the subject:

The USS Fitzgerald Is At Fault. This Is Why. – gCaptain

[estarzinger]

Have not seen this mentioned before.

There is a (voluntary) TSS along the Crystal"s track, indicating the Port turn exactly where she made it . . . somewhat suggesting that the Navy should have been expecting it and that navy might well have been in the wrong TSS lane.

[Snowpetrel]

Originally Posted by sailpower

None of them are blaming Trump.

Not your kind of place.

Ha, and they shouldn't. Unless I missed a post nobody in this thread has claimed Trump caused this accident.

Anyway a few more links

https://www.navytimes.com/articles/n...igations-begin

It is interesting reading between the lines of this article. And the comments are an insight into the navy mindset.

https://www.google.com.au/amp/www.da...rald-sank.html

This is a very poor peice of journalism but it has some good pictures of the container ships bow.

I especially like this part:

"The 30,000-ton Crystal outweighs the 8,000-ton US ship; it's speculated the crew didn't know about the hit"

I doubt this very much. Unless they had one hell of a party onboard. Those ships carry noise and impact through the structure pretty well. Just the sound of containers being landed on deck in port is loud enough in the accomodation. The engineers once dropped a 1 tonne piston down the service hatch. It woke the whole ship, sounded like the ship had exploded.

I also like this one

"It's not known how the US destroyer was hit by the cargo vessel, but the Crystal may have been on autopilot"

I'd say that's a pretty good bet.. I am guessing neither ship saw the other.

My thoughts go out to the family of the deceased, that single father with the only child really brings it home hard.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

This somewhat interested posted on another forum:

"As a plank owner on the USS Arleigh Burke and the first enlisted man to qualify and stand watch as an OOD on the Arleigh Burke Class ships I'll share some of my insight.

. . .

Fitzgerald- a SIGNIFICANT failure in situational awareness and total breakdown in internal comms and procedures. The Commanding Officer has standing orders and as the Senior Chief Quartermaster Asst. Nav and an OOD I generally wrote the CO's Night Orders for night time steaming . The Standing Orders require that the OOD has to notify the Captain at 10 yds when the CPA of a vessel is 2 yds or obviously less. A maneuvering recommendation is made based on the situation. Most CO Standing orders will allow the OOD's to maneuver + or - 5 degrees and speed increase/decrease of 3 knots to maintain CPAs greater than 10 k with out CO notification.

On USN ships, a CIC watch depending on defense posture will be manned with a CICWO , and 5 OS watch standers strictly watching the surface picture with all available surface search radars and passive sonar. The bridge will have a minimum on a AB class ship 6-12 watch standers.

"

Mind-boggling. MINIMUM SIX watchstanders -- "5 OS watch standers strictly watching the surface picture with all available surface search radars and passive sonar". You could track 30 or 40 critical targets with those resources.

I wonder if there is something like massive overkill or information overload going on here?

Translating yards to our units -- so 5 miles out captain must be notified if CPA less than 1 mile. Yet they were passing at a few cables distance and the captain was asleep, and no one of the 5 watchstanders sitting on absolutely vast resources, was watching the nearby ship.

How is it possible? Ball dropped among the team? Responsibility divided by sectors and everyone thought someone else was watching that particular sector? But surely every one of those five (or 12) watchstanders sitting behind a radar screen should have seen the merchant. I just don't understand.

[Snowpetrel]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

Have not seen this mentioned before.

There is a (voluntary) TSS along the Crystal"s track, indicating the Port turn exactly where she made it . . . somewhat suggesting that the Navy should have been expecting it and that navy might well have been in the wrong TSS lane.

Attachment 150300

Very interesting. It would also possibly explain the track after the collision, returning along the "correct" lane, and avoiding cutting through the separation zone.

I wonder if the Separation Zone is filled with fishing vessels?

[Dockhead]

This is a little bit off topic, but I ran across this:

"According to a USN relative (many years on destroyers) it’s also mandatory for USN vessels (at least the smaller ones) to maneuver in advance of the encounter such that they never become the vessel required to maintain course. That is, they maneuver to maintain the right to maneuver."

Here: https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2017...ald-collision/

An interesting perspective on collision avoidance. I've often stated that far from being a "privilege", being the stand-on vessel is the hardest role to play in collision avoidance -- because you don't control the crossing. The give-way vessel decides how to manage the crossing.

And here it says that the Navy requires its ships to maneuver is such way that they are the give-way vessel in crossings.

Don't know if that's even true -- never heard it before -- but it makes sense to me.

[Bigjim]

As a former Navy Quartermaster and bridge watch stander, this collision makes no sense. There was some enormous snafu and many people are going to be losing their jobs or future prospects.

I served aboard a WWII era destroyer in the 70s and we would have never been that close to any merchantman. Most merchantmen we encountered had skeleton crews standing watch at any time, maybe 2-5 at most. At night, it would probably be lower. And, these crew members would often have several jobs to do offering various levels of distraction.

On a navy ship we would have 2 officers, 2 helmsmen, a navigator, a Boatswains mate and probably 3 lookouts with binoculars. Then there would be another 3-5 watch standers in CIC monitoring radar and radio traffic. Only once in four years did we have to change course to avoid a merchantman. Basically, they often set their autopilot and steam ahead regardless of other traffic. We had the right-of-way but we maneuvered well in advance once we realized he was not going to alter course.

The Officer of the Deck (OOD) would wake the captain frequently throughout the night when we encountered unusual situations. His at sea cabin was directly behind the bridge. We will probably find out that the bridge crew was severely distracted or poorly trained. This smacks of human error.

There was a report that the merchantman changed course drastically several times before the collision. To me, this should not matter considering the Navy ship was a destroyer, capable of high speed and maneuverability. We're talking about a sports car being t-boned by a panel truck.

After studying several other collisions in history, the main culprit is usually distraction and confusion on the bridge. I await the formal findings.

[TwoBlocked]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

Have not seen this mentioned before.

There is a (voluntary) TSS along the Crystal"s track, indicating the Port turn exactly where she made it . . . somewhat suggesting that the Navy should have been expecting it and that navy might well have been in the wrong TSS lane.

Attachment 150300

Thanks for the additional info!

I recall being outbound in the Straits of Juan de Fuca, following the TSS. A sub was slowly overtaking us. They called and asked what my intentions were. I replied to maintain course and speed and remain within the TSS. A few minutes went by and the exact same request was made with the exact same reply. As I expected, a few minutes later the sub submerged...

The incident told me that the sub did not fully understand the Rules of the Road nor the requirements of that TSS. Unless a specific agreement was made, I was required to maintain course and speed. I sure wasn't going to try to second guess or even ask what their intentions were. It was up to THEM to propose some kind of passage, which I would have been happy to do. Instead, they chose to leave the TSS, or at least the surface of it, violating the spirit of it being a way for vessels to more safely navigate. Seems they were above (or in this case below?) that sort of thing...

But that might not have been the case here.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

This is a little bit off topic, but I ran across this:

"According to a USN relative (many years on destroyers) it’s also mandatory for USN vessels (at least the smaller ones) to maneuver in advance of the encounter such that they never become the vessel required to maintain course. That is, they maneuver to maintain the right to maneuver."

Here: https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2017...ald-collision/

An interesting perspective on collision avoidance. I've often stated that far from being a "privilege", being the stand-on vessel is the hardest role to play in collision avoidance -- because you don't control the crossing. The give-way vessel decides how to manage the crossing.

And here it says that the Navy requires its ships to maneuver is such way that they are the give-way vessel in crossings.

Don't know if that's even true -- never heard it before -- but it makes sense to me.

Makes sense to me also as part of thier tactical training

Here it is also bring discussed.
Re: large commercial ships vs small boats

http://gcaptain.com/colregs-give-way...Captain.com%29

[Yowieboy]

Please note that the TSS southeast of Irozaki cape is entirely _voluntary_, and is not marked by buoys as far as I know (don't have my charts at hand to check).

Here's how the Japan Times article to which I linked earlier describes it:

The Japan Captains’ Association, which mainly consists of skippers of commercial ships, calls on ships running near the cape to voluntarily keep to the right — westbound ships sailing close to the peninsula and eastbound vessels keeping far away from it.

But unlike roads, there are no fixed lanes in most parts of the sea near the peninsula. “Large ships going east change course near Cape Irozaki to avoid reefs in many cases,” the sea shipping industry official said.

[estarzinger]

^^

I looked at my chart and there are no lane buoy's shown, but the traffic lanes are shown on the chart - labeled as 'separation scheme voluntary'.

So, yes, it is clear that this is a 'legally optional' scheme . . . . but the fact it is there and marked on the chart and outlined in the pilot, basically . . . . It means that the crystal's course was in fact pretty predictable, and Navy should have been paying attention.

#1 navy should have know to expect traffic to make that port turn,
#2 navy should have known where to look closely (to starboard) for on coming traffic,
#3 navy watch keepers and bridge and CiC to be paying (extra) attention when crossing TSS lanes even voluntary ones.

It just adds a bit more to the puzzle of why this happened to navy - this is a spot exactly marked on charts and pilot where you wanted to pay extra attention and you (should have) knew where to look.