Near collision - two navy ships - San Diego

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by skipperpete

I’d be interested to know the designation of the navigation buoy in the video, it might have had some significance in the decision to alter course to Port not stbd. Applying a “burst of power” in a risk of collision situation is a poor choice of “actions to avoid collision” and in the cases of 3 previous destroyer collisions, speed management resulted in less than desirable outcomes.

It's a starboard-hand buoy - it marks the southern edge of the dredged channel. In fact there is a port-hand buoy in the video that marks the northern limit of that channel, and towards the end, you see another stbd buoy. If you look at noaa chart 18773, it appears this happened in the vicinity of Shelter Is.

[boatpoker]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Tbd judges and the subsequent recommendation in that collision around negotiating passing by vhf pointed out thd issues errors thd mcAproclamation was quite definite as a result

What collision ?

[Montanan]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/mo...c631d58bbb0647

Dramatic video footage captured two U.S. Navy warships nearly colliding in San Diego Bay on Tuesday morning.

The $1.8bn Arleigh Burke-class destroyer Momsen can be seen on a head-on collision course with the $324m dock-landing ship Harper's Ferry.

But at the very last minute the Momsen made a sharp turn to the left - port - to avoid a collision.

Harper's Ferry was leaving Naval Base Point Loma while the Momsen was entering it.

'Both ships maneuvered to safety,' Lt. Samuel Boyle told The San Diego Tribune. 'There were no injuries or damage to the ship as a result of those maneuvers.'

The Momsen's home port is Everett, Washington - while Harper's Ferry docks in San Diego.

An investigation by the Navy is currently underway.

While officials confirmed the two vessels got too close to each other, no further information was released. "


The twitter video link is the best as it has audio of the radio conversation.

In the linked article there are photos.

The ships where in San Diego Bay in between Naval Base Point Loma and Naval Air Station North Island

A red buoy marker is readily visible to the port side of the out bound 610 foot long Harper's Ferry and is only a bit more than a beams width from the hull of the Harper's Ferry.

The green buoy was much further to the starboard of the Harpers ferry, perhaps several hundred feet towards the mainland, to the left in the view of the camera.

IMHO, the Harper's Ferry took too close of a line to the port side of the entry channel to San Diego harbor forcing the Momsen to evade to their port, towards which there was plenty of maneuvering room to perform their assertive port change of course. The Harper's Ferry just took a tight radius course around the bend of the land and should have proceeded with a larger radius and not "cut the corner".

Well they both maneuvered assertively once it became clear that they were on a collision course, but it would have been better to have communicated their passage much earlier. Given the circumstances their choice to shift towards port was appropriate as the channel to starboard was constrained for the agile Momsen as the Harper's Ferry had constrained that direction.



Would have been interesting to see a few recreational sail boats changing tack to add to the mix in that often busy with pleasure boaters in that narrow harbor entrance.

[Jim Cate]

Despite the various admonitions to not use VHF to negotiate passings, in this case it sounds like the vhf declaration of the port turn was essential (as was the concurrence of the other vessel).

Seems to me that they made a good outcome from a bad meeting.

Jim

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by Montanan

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/mo...c631d58bbb0647

Harper's Ferry was leaving Naval Base Point Loma while the Momsen was entering it.

I'm curious about this statement - Point Loma is astern of the Momsen. I guess it's possible HF backed out of a slip and half-mile into the channel before starting to go forward, but I had assumed they had come from the main base and were following the channel around North Is. Reporters aren't experts, so misleading or outright wrong information does make it into these articles - example below:

International inland navigation rules state that vessels approaching one another are required to stay to the right and pass one another on the left.

[BlueH2Obound]

So, it a confined waterway, two ships noted that if no action was taken, a collision was possible.

So both vessels reacted in a reasonable manner to avoid a collision.
a collision was avoided
no property was damaged
no people were injured . . . . .

Just curious, but why is this a story?

[El Pinguino]

Lots of foreshortening with that lens.

[El Pinguino]

A summary of the MCA notice referred to above can be read here https://safety4sea.com/uk-mca-advise...radio-and-ais/

The full MCA text can be read here https://www.safety4sea.com/wp-conten...t1-2017-10.pdf

The bit that would apply in this case is in the latter document at

'2. VHF Communications and usage
......
c) On VHF channels allocated to port operations or ship movement services, such as VTS, the only messages permitted are restricted to those relating to operational handling, the movement and the safety of ships and to the safety of persons;'

It is normal - in fact common - in port waters for pilots and pilotage exempt masters to arrange things on the port ops VHF channel. Green to green is common in some jurisdictions for a number of reasons.

[skipperpete]

Originally Posted by BlueH2Obound

So, it a confined waterway, two ships noted that if no action was taken, a collision was possible.

So both vessels reacted in a reasonable manner to avoid a collision.
a collision was avoided
no property was damaged
no people were injured . . . . .

Just curious, but why is this a story?

Slow news day!! , Rupert told the team to make news.... again.

[admiralslater]

Seems to me that the larger ship came to the channel to close to the red marker you can see the green in the distance

[BobMc]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

The downbound rule is only on the Western Rivers. So not applicable in San Diego.

Absolutely! It's amazing how many boaters cite the "downbound" rule thinking it applies everywhere there's water! They need to actually read and think about the rules, rather than just mimic what someone else has said.

[donradcliffe]

Originally Posted by BobMc

Absolutely! It's amazing how many boaters cite the "downbound" rule thinking it applies everywhere there's water! They need to actually read and think about the rules, rather than just mimic what someone else has said.

On the ICW where there are tidal currents the bridge operators use the downbound rule when they open.

[BobMc]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

On the ICW where there are tidal currents the bridge operators use the downbound rule when they open.

That's not a "rule," however, it's just the bridge operators organizing the traffic that has backed up waiting for a bridge. We've cruised up and down the ICW more than a dozen times and there were only a few bridge operators who organized the opening in such a way. Maybe that has changed in the past few years.

[AquaticaSD]

I'm a local here in San Diego and hope I can shed some light. The video is not a complete story.

Those buoys everyone sees are all red and we follow the typical Port to Port passing. In fact the Navy is really good about pre-announcing their intentions on VHF 16 among themselves, commercial and private vessels. There is no simple excuse for these two ships to be on a collision course on a clear day with both from the 'same team'.

The following YouTube commentary on this event was very enlightening. It seems that there was also a in-motion transfer of a Navy Harbor Pilot from one of the big yellow tugs that provide service to the Navy. In the video it is hidden on the starboard side of the Destroyer and appears just before the evasive actions are taking place.

That transfer process kept the Destroyer on a straight course and may have also distracted the bridge crew. Regardless, both ships were very late to call-out the problem. The bulkier "Harpers Ferry" vessel that was clearly cutting the corner and leaving NO room at the buoy for the Destroyer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s18O_iAlKE

Lastly, this was a particularly crowded channel at the time. Just before this incident there was a nearly brand new LHA (a small aircraft carrier for helicopters/VSTOL) that was inbound and created a tight crossing with the same departing Harpers Ferry. No telling if this may have set-up the problem of the Harpers Ferry over compensating and cutting the corner.

Always love to ponder why something so obviously wrong should happen to crews on well trained vessels. But then, Murphy's Law trumps everything but Newton's Laws of motion.

Lance Murphy

[Noahr]

Yep I live and sail there too. . No need for both of them to “hog” the red side of the channel. And, they were way late calling on VHF for a starboard to starboard passing. 18 yr. old sailors.🤦*♂️😎