The news reports I found dont go beyond the first page summary and I found none with a hot button to get the report. The 35-page report was a good read, but then I was a Navy ship driver. I also didnt see the report had been posted before.
A few quick observations are:
As OOD I kept eyes on the ocean around us and let the JO and CIC consult the radar. They seemed too interested in the electronics.
The McCain was passing ships to port at about one-half standard distance and at 20 knots. Yet the radar screen shots all show they are on the left side of the channel with plenty of room to starboard.
The report says the McCain people did not anticipate an emergency situation in a high traffic area? We always anticipated everything would go to hell at the worst of times, which of course made our watches at those times really intense.
Even though the tanker considered the maneuver of the McCain across its bow dangerous they only slowed instead of backing. The McCains turn to port occurred before the steering casualty. The ship was already to the far left of the southwest inbound channel, so I would have decided they were out control or out of their minds.
I checked a map and they were still about 15 miles from the southern harbor entrance and they intended to set special sea and anchor detail in about 45 minutes after when the collision occurred. That does seem about right to me. Our ship got pretty close to Yokosuka and I had a lot of ships around me before we brought the bridge team up.
Sudden turn to port? (left for you landlubbers)
So the helm reported loss of steering control as the ship started to drift to port, so they transferred steering to the aft emergency steering position, which promptly, instead of returning the ship to course, made a 33 degree left turn into the path of the tanker to test to see whether they had control. (Paragraphs 1.6.10 - 1.6.14, pp 19-20.)
So the bridge told the aft position to take over steering, but didn’t tell them where to steer the ship or where the other traffic was. The lookout had issued a warning (1.6.13)
Clearly the fault of the XO on the bridge of the McCain.
Thanks for posting the link to the report.
Our military has been down graded right alongside our schools systems, as planned.
Full and complete reports on ship collisions can be done before a city can determine if a Somali cop murdered a woman in a dark alley nearly a year ago in Minneapolis.
Sounds like the ship is following it’s name sakes moves.