US Navy destroyer collision

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Intentionally hitting a modern US Navy ship on the high seas with a loaded containership is sort of like hitting a Porsche with a semi. Not impossible, but the Porsche driver would need to be asleep at the wheel.

Not to hard I drove my rear axles over the front of a 911 from the firewall to the front bumper in that order he was trying to pass on the shoulder. Didnt see him untill I was on top of it.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Randy

In certain situations vessels are passing close aboard 100 - 200 yds and if there is ill intent there are countless opportunities whether it's a warship or not.

Sure, ok... which is why the ACX was permitted to resume its journey and deliver its cargo.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Randy

In certain situations vessels are passing close aboard 100 - 200 yds and if there is ill intent there are countless opportunities whether it's a warship or not.

Exactly what "certain situations" would, in the open ocean, cause a warship to close within 100 yards of a merchant vessel? And how would the merchant vessel force such a situation to develop even if there was ill intent?

CPAs of one mile or more are SOP for most such vessels at sea.

Jim

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Exactly what "certain situations" would, in the open ocean, cause a warship to close within 100 yards of a merchant vessel? And how would the merchant vessel force such a situation to develop even if there was ill intent?

CPAs of one mile or more are SOP for most such vessels at sea.

Jim

I dont think there was ill intent however remember where this incident happend. It was in a rather congested shipping lane. Between several islands. (Refer to post #42 if I recall correctly. ) so the idea of a minimum of a mile may not have been feasible.

[Randy]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Exactly what "certain situations" would, in the open ocean, cause a warship to close within 100 yards of a merchant vessel? And how would the merchant vessel force such a situation to develop even if there was ill intent?

CPAs of one mile or more are SOP for most such vessels at sea.

Jim

I drive Navy auxiliaries in these waters and in overtaking situations it happens all the time. We know next to nothing about the situation except for an AIS track which only shows other AIS targets.
There is a hot civil war with ISIS as one of the participants going on in the Philippines.
Is an intentional ramming likely no, but not out of the question.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by newhaul

I dont think there was ill intent however remember where this incident happend. It was in a rather congested shipping lane. Between several islands. (Refer to post #42 if I recall correctly. ) so the idea of a minimum of a mile may not have been feasible.

No scale shown on Evans' posted AIS track, but I don't think it is all THAT congested! I'll leave it to the various real skippers here to comment, but I can not imagine any circumstance where the CO of a destroyer would allow a container ship within '100-200 YDS" of his ship while under way at sea.

It is my impression from posts by El Ping and others that if a CPA of less than a mile is imminent the skippers will be in voice communications to determine how the pass will be accomplished. We've certainly observed such here on the coast of Australia... all calm and professional, but concern expressed to be sure they understand each other's intentions. Guess this didn't happen with the Fitz.

Jim

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by Randy

I drive Navy auxiliaries in these waters and in overtaking situations it happens all the time. We know next to nothing about the situation except for an AIS track which only shows other AIS targets.
There is a hot civil war with ISIS as one of the participants going on in the Philippines.
Is an intentional ramming likely no, but not out of the question.

I agree Randy, passing CPA's of 2 or 3 cables is common in those waters and in the Seto Naikai

We would run them constantly at night on Super yachts, between destinations for our guests.

But Jim's instincts are correct, the CS jogged out of the busier lane to do reciprocal runs and kill time, no need to pass that close.

Maybe the NW snuck up from behind to have a closer look and passed too close just as the CS decided to make another turn, unaware of the overtaking and non broadcasting Fitzgerald.

My understanding is..

CS is a Philippine flagged ship, owned by a Japanese company, doing inter island runs. The Filipino crew would be well trained/well vetted and in familiar waters....extremely doubtful of anything sinister

[Snowpetrel]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...rald.html?_r=0

This seems to show the collision happened much earlier, nearer 1:30 am. With the bold 180 degree turn happening afterwards as the conrainership returned to to the scene.

An interesting turn to port by the merchant vessel about 5-7 miles before the collision. Hopefully a proper investigation will be made public at sone stage. Condolences to the family and friends of the lost sailors.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Snowpetrel

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...rald.html?_r=0

This seems to show the collision happened much earlier, nearer 1:30 am. With the bold 180 degree turn happening afterwards as the conrainership returned to to the scene.

An interesting turn to port by the merchant vessel about 5-7 miles before the collision. Hopefully a proper investigation will be made public at sone stage. Condolences to the family and friends of the lost sailors.

That turn to port looks logical. It put them on a direct heading for the point where they eventually turned North into the Bay. Possibly the warship missed the turn and thought that it was going to pass astern of the cargo ship based on the previous heading.

[Three Sisters]

Yes. From over here, our heartfelt condolences.


This is the third article then, that I've read, reporting the collision time to be 130am local time.

Two yesterday. One from the Wall Street Journal and this one from Reuters:

U.S. destroyer almost foundered after collision, bodies found: Seventh Fleet | Reuters

The Reuters article cites the Japanese Coast Guard. The Wall Street Journal article cites the shipping people from the ACX Crystal.

Settling the actual time of the collision would be a good start as the USN has reported the time to be 220am to 230am local time.

[El Pinguino]

Looking more and more straightforward to me.... Navy ship overtaking up box boat's port side.... box boat makes alteration of course to port when south of Oshima ( I think that is the name) Island to shape a course up towards Tokyo Bay...

Navy ship does not notice that CPA has gone from maybe 0.3 miles to 0.0....

End of story...

Delay in reporting is easily explained...
'Did you feel a bump' yes I think we hit something etc... check frd for damage .. wait for break in south West bound traffic, turn ship... go back... yup best notify authorities... lots of prioritising going on there... telling shore wallas was probably down the list a bit.

The little blip in her track north of Oshima was probably where she embarked Japanese MSA investigators... they don't muck around.

Some simple rules of overtaking.. anticipate what the ship you are overtaking is going to do... as in 'going to Tokyo... going to alter to port sooner or later'.
Rule two... all else being equal leave the ship you are overtaking to port... that leaves your starboard hand clear.

I was interested to see that they had messdecks ( aka 'sleeping compartments' ) below the water line.

Very sad about the men lost.

[El Pinguino]

'box boat makes alteration of course to port when south of Oshima ( I think that is the name) Island to shape a course up towards Tokyo Bay...'

Ooooops... that should read alteration to port to pass south of Oshima before shaping a course up towards Tokyo.. but I'm sure you all know what I intended...

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Looking more and more straightforward to me.... Navy ship overtaking up box boat's port side.... box boat makes alteration of course to port when south of Oshima ( I think that is the name) Island to shape a course up towards Tokyo Bay...

Navy ship does not notice that CPA has gone from maybe 0.3 miles to 0.0....

I think we're getting closer to the answer, but (and this is a big 'but') USN ships do not like to get within 5 miles of their allies, let alone commercial ships in open ocean. Very doubtful they would plan to overtake a vessel at half a mile. That little (about 10º ) turn to port was about 5nm before the collision, so there was definitely time to sort out and avoid. Still looks like a crossing situation with Fitz southbound before the crash.

[Three Sisters]

We've all seen this ? Maybe not. The USS Gonzalez, another Arleigh class. Moving right along.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqhtEri-U-Q

[Snowpetrel]

^^Pretty impressive in a boy racer kind of way, the wake is insane...

The ability of Gas turbines and Variable pitch props to accelerate and decelerate quickly is amazing. But in someways it can make colregs more complex. On a typical merchant ship most action to avoid collision is done by alterations of course. This is very obvious to anyone observing, where as a change of speed is often much harder to pick. From a colregs POV the extra options are good, but it adds complexity of the decision making tree, and would be unexpected from the merchant ships perspective. Changing speed can really screw up CPA and TCPA calcs. And trails in true motion don't show the changes clearly as they would with a course change.

The only time I ran up those waters was on the P&O container ship "Tokyo Bay". The traffic was very heavy. Lots of fishing boat fleets. I remember the third mate at one stage ending up 12 miles off our track due to trying to go around fishing fleets. The old man was not impressed. He was a grumpy sod at the best of times, fortunately as a second trip cadet I was mostly beneath his notice.