Unexploded mine... Really

[Dave_S]

Don't want to run into one of these.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/unexplo...nd-washington/

[sv Stella Maris]

Story says a ‘moored mine’...was this thing just floating around somewhere near the navy base?

Crazy to think those were scattered by the thousands at one point in the not so distant past around the world.

[mickt243]

Yes, really.

In this particular case, it turns out that it was an inert training aid from an excercise several years ago.

But real ones from wars past do turn up from time to time, and the passage of time does not diminish the danger - more to the point, many old explosive weapons become more danger as they age. Safety devices fail, explosive compositions can degrade into more sensitive component parts (eg, double base propellant exuding raw nitroglycerin) or can react with corrosion byproducts to make other sensitive explosives (coloured crystals on your explosives are always bad juju)


Ex EOD guy...

[Tetepare]

The Pacific islands are loaded with UXO. If you see it, which you will, don’t mess with it. Except US yellow hand grenades which are OK now. But don’t mess with the Jap grenades they are sealed.

[Nicholson58]

UXB is noted in areas around Chaguaramas, Trinidad, particularly Scotland Bay. This is associated with WWII military bases. It doesn’t seem to deter locals and others from anchoring.

[hellosailor]

Mick-
"The Associated Press says that the Navy inspected the moored mine and it showed decades of marine growth."
Decades = "recent" ?
No mention of inert there. AP makes it sound like they set it off with other explosives.

[Cheechako]

I have been following that story. But I've come to think that the mine was not loaded, it was a training mine used to test detection of mines. They exploded it with ordinance as they didn't know the situation. So the explosion you see is the stuff they used to destroy it. But I'm not 100% on that.
My guess is it makes a better news story if they dont tell you that.

[SFS]

I don't have a link, but one article I read quoted a Navy or CG spokesman as saying there was no secondary explosion went their explosives were used to destroy the mine.

[cwoflyboy]

I was a SAR coordinator for Eastern Florida in the early 80’s. About every 2 years we would have a training mine drift into our AOR. We were told they drifted up from Cuba (is was never mentioned whether it was the Cuban Navy or our Navy at Gitmo). We did have one live mine that Coast Guard Station Ponce Inlet responded to near Daytona Beach. Navy EOD personnel from Mayport dealt with it

[mickt243]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Mick-
"The Associated Press says that the Navy inspected the moored mine and it showed decades of marine growth."
Decades = "recent" ?
No mention of inert there. AP makes it sound like they set it off with other explosives.

depending on where you're from, a few weeks worth of growth can look like a few decades worth.....


have followed the story from several sources, not just the quoted.


from other stories, recent = 2005 to 2013 ish...

[RaymondR]

Hell mate, you can probably buy the damned things in a war surplus store in the U.S.

[Dockhead]

I wonder if there is any material risk of setting off unexploded ordinance with an anchor?


I was once trying to get an anchor down in Vyborg harbor some years ago (that used to be Viipuri, formerly the biggest city in Finland, but now in Russia). In order to med moor to the old quay there. The harbormaster waved frantically, then came out in his skiff -- you really don't want to do that.


But really -- has there ever been a case of a yacht setting off an old bomb or mine with an anchor? I've never heard of one.

[mickt243]

Dockhead...

Yes, there is certainly some risk, however, unless you were anchoring in an area known for UXO (say, an old bombing range - plenty of them in shallow water about the planet) the odds of your anchor hitting the exact wrong spot are really low - you’ll likely win the lotto a thousand times first.... I haven’t heard of an anchor triggering a detonation, but I have heard of plenty of UXO being bought to the surface by anchors dredges etc....

Even if you were anchoring on an old range, the risk is really low.

Where the real risk is, is when an UXO is bought to the surface and someone fiddles with it. A while back I spent a month in the island nation of Kiribati (Tarawa and Butaritari atolls) removing old ww2 jap, Brit and US ordnance from the reef and from within towns/villages - there were plenty of locals who were horribly disfigured from the UXO- the whole reason their government had asked for assistance- the impoverished locals were digging up UXO and using a hammer and cold chisel to remove the brass fuzes for scrap metal value. They also had a habit of trying to dig holes by putting a shell in a small pit and lighting a fire on top of it. To get back on topic, we did find 2 x 20Kg jap ground mines in good condition and likely fully functional biggest bang for the month was approx 1.5 ton NEQ ( big pile of UXO inside a hesco barrier we assembled it at low tide as far out to sea as we could, and popped it at high tide) . Biggest UXO found was a US 14 inch naval shell (retrieved from the edge of a village, our navy diver companions took that one well offshore and blew it in deep water).

[l2ridehd]

I sailed around the SVI several times and have anchored around Vieques a few times. There are still several closed beaches there and charts show many areas not to drop anchor. You will also still see Navy teams working some of the islands beaches to remove OXB. Not sure how high the risk really is, but I always studied the charts pretty well before deciding where to anchor around there.

[The Perfessor]

I had sailed the SVI and Vieques two years ago. One captain I talked to from the charter company (originally from Denver, CO) said he dropped anchor on the east side of Vieques. Dove on the anchor and found that he had missed some UXO by about 6 feet. He pulled up and went to the designated safe areas....

So besides worrying about navigating, other boaters, fuel, water, food, weather (and if you saw the thread about the bear boarding boats and tearing apart the cabin looking for food) and bears, we can add worrying about unexploded ordinance to the list. Never a dull moment.