The Navy now has GPS, but I would have had a chart, magnetic compass and timely information about currents and tides. Also the radar would have been working. In fact everything would have been working and the crew knowledgeable, because I was forward deployed and not tied up to some stateside pier. Besides keeping up on my planned maintenance I would have conducted a local operation or seagoing exercise once or twice a week.
My CO and I would have laid out a course which intercepted the friendly shore at least by the latitude of the Iranian island. We would have avoided the island, and the refueling ship would have been where we assigned it. Most likely we would have chosen courses which kept us in sight of land the whole way.
The departure port, the refueling ship, and the destination port would have all shared the same radio frequencies and made regular radio checks. During an amphibious exercise my wave of assault boats was swallowed by a fog. When I saw that fog coming I made sure the flag ship could vector us back to our LPD.
In my Old Navy if we were going anywhere near harm’s way we would have done so intentionally and been prepared to kick the sh*t out of the Iranians to help them understand they should obey the law. Our guns would have been test fired when we got underway.
Well, this is a short version of how it should have been done by someone who was competent, but not brilliant. This evolution was certainly not rocket science, was definitely inconceivable in my Navy, and could have been carried out by just about any small boat qualified junior officer during my time on active duty.
I would not have done what they did with my fishing boat.
Thank you for your service, as well.