When you enter a congested commercial sea lane at 20 knots (20 friggin’ knots!), and you’re a stupid affirmative action Junior Officer...bad things are certain to happen.
Everyone else is doing 10-12 knots and maintaining separation.
It’s like entering a freeway on-ramp at 125mph and crossing six lanes to get to the “fast lane”.
Mariner, you are a true mariner — and correct that 20 knots is an insane speed in a congested waters.
I also read part of the report that said the Captain was asleep at the time of incident at 1:30 AM.
The Captain should always be up on deck in situations like this. It’s very dangerous.
I was a JOOD on a destroyer in the 70s. I remember one time we were operating with a small task force in the congested Strait of Hormuz (Persian Gulf). And the Navy ship ahead of us had a narrow miss with a merchant ship. This was in the middle of the night and the Captain was on deck.
We were peering into binoculars and the Captain was watching the two ships and observed they were so close “Their radar blips merged!”
The other angle here is the Command Information Center was not doing its job tracking path of other ships to avoid collision.
But I fault the Captain the most. He’s the one who needs to be up and alert during times of hazardous navigation.