U.S. Navy ship goes aground due to bad charts

[Kettlewell]

Not sure if this story has been discussed here yet, but so far the Navy is blaming the grounding of their ship in the Philippines on bad charts.

[Ram]

Hard to make that claim, even for folks like us- if someone is on watch- depth finder- slow speed works wonders

[SURV69]

Forget the charts . . . just look at the waves going across the reef

[The Garbone]

Skippers. Career. Over.

[Kettlewell]

It will be interesting if we can find out if the error was made when the paper charts were converted to digital, as we have seen in other areas even within the U.S.A.

[Matt sachs]

A wooden boat on the rocks, that's bad.

[LeaseOnLife]

not the first incindent, this happened in 2005, to the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior:

Our ship Rainbow Warrior was in the Philippines, documenting thepotential impacts of global warming on coral reefs in a World Heritagesite. We were operating with a government chart which claimed tobe up to date, but showed us to be 1.5 miles away from the reef we hitaround 7am local time.

Greenpeace

[LeaseOnLife]

Originally Posted by SURV69

Forget the charts . . . just look at the waves going across the reef

gcaptain.com states this happened 02:30 am.

[LeaseOnLife]

Originally Posted by Matt sachs

A wooden boat on the rocks, that's bad.

Interesting!

The hulls of the Avenger-class ships are constructed of wood with an external coat of glass-reinforced plastic. The wood used is oak, Douglas-fir and Nootka Cypress because of their flexibility and strength and low weight. This construction allows the hull to withstand a nearby blast from a naval mine and also gives the ship a low magnetic signature.

Avenger class mine countermeasures ship - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[mcarling]

Originally Posted by The Garbone

Skippers. Career. Over.

Yes, and the Officer of the Watch too, most likely.

[jeanathon]

Originally Posted by LeaseOnLife

not the first incindent, this happened in 2005, to the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior:

Greenpeace

The irony here that they were documenting damage to the reef by damaging the reef is almost too much for me this morning.

[hellosailor]

Kettlewell, maybe I missed it but I don't see anything in that URL that says the USN is blaming anything or anyone for the grounding. Especially, not charts.

Obviously this was an amphibious landing practice that was to be conducted in secret, and when the Phillipines Defense Forces caught it, the USN put out a cover story to hide that. Grounding, yeah, we'll call it a grounding!

But as Garbone said, USN policy on this is pretty simple. Doesn't matter if the earth rose from beneath the seas, the Captain is up for early retirement along with whoever else was involved. Somebody screwed up.

Which is why the Navy has a quaint little phrase to cover situations like this:
Sh|t happens.

[Kettlewell]

Kettlewell, maybe I missed it but I don't see anything in that URL that says the USN is blaming anything or anyone for the grounding. Especially, not charts.

Here's a quote from the linked article:

The Navy said in a statement that a review of Digital Nautical Charts, which are used for safe navigation by all U.S. Navy ships, found they contained inaccurate data and may have been a factor in the Guardian's grounding. As a result, Navigator of the Navy Rear Adm. Jonathan White released precautionary guidance to all Pacific Fleet ships, saying that "initial review of navigation data indicates an error in the location of Tubbataha Reef" in the Philippines.

[hellosailor]

Oh, "under the fold", thank you.
I read the top paragraph, which is supposed to tell the story in a news article, and then saw three long smaller articles, which apparently are overlong photo captions, and assumed the rest of the page was going to be more talk about flag-burning and other issues. Never got far enough down to get "under the fold" and see they've cleverly buried the real article under a first page (screen) of...the wrong stuff.

[Kettlewell]

Frankly, I would have thought that a minesweeper, of all vessels, would have some sort of forward looking sonar that would have alerted them in time.