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....
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.