Posted on 02/18/2014 11:20:52 PM PST by cunning_fish
One of the Naval warships assigned to the Black Sea for U.S. protection during the Sochi Winter Olympics ran aground last Wednesday in a Turkish port as it was attempting to refuel.
The port was 240 miles from Sochi.
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.yahoo.com ...
!
Not every port has a harbor pilot, even then CO is still ultimately responsible and can take back the con. Charts are provided by US sources even for foreign ports and a ship gets a new load out based on their planned ops - I understand they may have digital charts now, but still maintain a paper backup. He didn’t hit a wreck he hit bottom which means it is not a change likely to have been different from the chart. With GPS and Visual observation there is no excuse for running aground. My guess is they were preoccupied by the refuel op and didn’t plan well on their route to avoid the area - luckily the oiler didn’t hit as well.
I correct myself - he only had prop damage which very well could have been due to wreckage shift or new events - we’ll await the results of the investigation.
Hehehe...YOU have never been on a Naval Board of Inquiry!
Thanks! I read a great book on the grounding, it looked like it was printed in the sixties sometime!
I read a book a while back on the salvage operations at Pearl...it was fascinating.
Sounded like the job of diving on the USS Arizona really sucked. Lots and lots of bodies.
Ah! I was having a complete mental block this morning and couldn’t remember the name of the shoal...that’s it!
Has a ring to it, doesn’t it?
hehehe I have processed and represented the command in over 100 admin seps, overseen 200 captains masts, conducted multiple jagman investigations (including one private boat admiralty docked at the base), and written charges for courts-martial (including a nasty murder case).
Was legal o on my first ship and did 6 months with CFAY Legal in Yoko between ships. Best part was working with the Japanese police regarding the SOFA prison.
In other words, I know the process ;)
oh- and I’m not a lawyer ... just a black shoe SWO doing collateral duty.
Call Boats US and pour me another brandy. That's a stout lad.
LOL, so you DO understand!
As you know, I was making a reference to the Naval tradition of groundings/collisions.
As you well know, if you damage a ship in either a collision or a grounding...there isn’t much in the way of mercy or even understanding. The poor, pitiful subjects all pretty much know it too.
Just the way it is...
true oh so true... People often site the Nimitz story(and he wasn’t the only one to have survived similar situations), but so much has changed now. Back then Naval Officers had TRUE ambassadorial powers in the 1800 and early 1900s (still on the books). Now if you sneeze in the wrong direction you can forget the next promotion board ... unless of course you “know someone”. Wooden ships and iron men are so passe after all....
That area has hex on it or something; weird stuff happens there all the time. I remember in the 90’s I was sitting on the beach across from where that was when I saw a beautiful new Navy warship sail proudly down the channel. I was still there an hour or two later when the same ship passed by again, this time being towed back into Norfolk the other way. What I heard was some computer system crashed and shut down the engines and there was no easy way to fix it.
I just finished reading "Six Frigates", and when you see what those Captains did to their ships and got away with it. Well, I guess in those days, you couldn't avoid running aground.
I have an acquaintance who lives lives in Hull, a professional sailor. We went out in his small boat one night and got stuck. Not hard, but to the point where maneuvering the load, etc might just give you enough room to get off.
He was awfully matter-of-fact about it, where I thought I might be a little more stressed out by it, but he just said something like "If you are on a boat around here, you're gonna run aground someday."
Anyway, where in the Navy's history did they make that switch to where grounding was the worst thing you could do? The world wonders.
I believe it occurred in the late 60s after the USS Everett F. Larsson (DD-830) was cut in two by the HMAS Melbourne (aussie carrier). (for anyone who’s seen the great training film “I Relieve You, Sir” just remember: “it’s too close for mo-board we’ll eye it in”). Shortly thereafter or before was the Forest fire...I mean Forrestal incident off the coast of Vietnam.
Then you had the mid-70s elimination of the draft creating a professional navy and true career dedicated sailors. (not in itself a bad thing but combined with the next two...)
Closer and immediate communications have also led to increased oversight of decisions from “home” at all levels.
The final piece of the pie though and I think the one that made everything so political, unaccepting of risk takers, and career killers for any mistake (including PC nonsense) was the change to an up or out promotion system.
(yes, I would have considered staying in if allowed to complete 20 as a LT instead of worrying about making the next 2 promotions to get to 20 in an ever tightening pool that could result in missing retirement by 2-5 years and losing the investment of my younger years - in the end it caught me in the reserves anyway due to draw downs before 9-11.)
So overall I’d say it changed in the last 30 years alongside alot of the rest of our cultural issues.
(For more on the Larsson/Melbourne I provide this summary from http://www.navsource.org/archives/05/754.htm: On June 3 1969, while operating with the Royal Australian Navy off Luzon, USS Frank E. Evans was operating in company with the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne. At flying stations, Melbourne signaled Evans, which was to port of the carrier, to take up the rescue destroyer position. The logical movement would be to make a turn to port and describe a circle taking up station on the carrier’s port quarter. Inexplicably, instead of turning to port, USS Frank E Evans turned to starboard, cutting across Melbourne’s bow and was cut in half in the ensuing collision. Her bow section sank instantly, taking 74 of her crew down with it. At the time of the collision USS Frank E. Evans’s captain was asleep and the ship was under command of a junior officer who was not qualified to stand watch, having failed at his previous board. As a memorial to her lost crew the USN sank the stern section as a target in Subic Bay October 10 1969.)
I lived in the Philippines when the Evans was hit by the Melbourne. They towed the aft portion into Subic, and the bus took me by it every day. There was something vaguely obscene about looking at those exposed decks and bulkheads, but I think it was a sole exposed hatch that really made my mind dwell on it.
Yep forgot about that one also about same time frame though I think in the early 70s...
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