Posted on 06/22/2017 7:16:05 PM PDT by Retain Mike
It is a big ocean. Until you have been far into it, it is really hard to appreciate just how big. Bringing a ship back from Japan to Hawaii, I once went ten days without seeing another ship, either by eye or radar. That is a long time to be alone in the world, especially if you are moving in a straight line and at good speed. On the other hand, you would be surprised at how crowded the ocean can get in certain places. The Strait of Malacca, for instance, divides the island of Sumatra from Malaysia. Not only is Singapore at the southern end—one of the great maritime ports of the world—but most of the shipping moving between Asia and Africa, and from the Middle East to Europe, travels through this increasingly narrow, 600 mile-long passage. Every year, 100,000 ships transit this strait. By the way, these confined waters are infested with pirates and literally thousands of fishing boats. While a chart may make the strait seem wide, the passable channel for big ships is only a couple of miles wide.
(Excerpt) Read more at usni.org ...
At the close of an availability we did our sea trials in the shipping channel, and with the regular watch after Special Sea and Anchor Detail for crossing three lines of intense traffic. I remember having the watch one time when at end of travel on one course the CO directed me to head back on the opposite course when the way was clear. My JOOD checked the radar for ships closing, I went to both wings of the bridge to confirm the situation, and turned 180 degrees. We had a new OX, who was impressed by the maneuver and how tightly we turned. At the time, there were a couple hundred ships with five miles of us. LST’s were slow, but their rudders were very large and we could make tight turns.
The situation was very different the time we went Korea from Yokosuka. I had the last regular watch transiting the Sea of Japan as we closed on the Shimonoseki Strait and many ships. We picked up a pilot well before the sea got too crowded. He was a former destroyer skipper in the Imperial Japanese Navy, and we had to give him a box the stand on in order to see forward. His first order was “engines full”. It seemed that in places the channel was no wider than a six-lane freeway. He certainly got my attention.
So familiarity with a part of the ocean can determine what is prudent.
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Track of the ACX Crystal that collided with USS Fitzgerald (Maritime Traffic).
Interesting.
Can anyone explain this track for the ACX Crystal?
Yes, an actual book on Amazon.com, price for the paperback now up to $78.56
Captain John Trimmer would find a way to dodge that container ship...
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But I have it on good authority from the landlubbers at American Thinker that anyone who doesn’t agree that it was a joint North Korean/Jihadi attack planned well in advance is a traitor or enemy agent
There is a lot of good discussion on this thread as well.
Additionally, there are several things I see that buttress his observations on this:
1.) The 90 degree turn at 1630 UTC (0130 local time) with the accompanying dramatic dropoff in speed. That alone appears to support a collision.
2.) The data indicates that with almost no delay, literally three minutes, the ship began picking up speed and resuming its course. To me, that is also evidence the ACX Crystal was on autopilot. If not, any normal mariner would have stopped the ship dead in the water and stayed that way.
Looking at the times, it took about eight minutes for the ACX Crystal to resume its course and pick up speed again, something I just don’t think any mariner would have done on a civilian ship in peacetime.
During that eight minute time frame, while the CRX Crystal was on autopilot, I don’t doubt that the 20 man crew was running around in total pandemonium and confusion (Including the Captain) while the lone guy on the bridge who was probably surfing the Internet or watching a DVD was standing in the middle of the bridge with alarms going off, the ship thudding and heeling as it began to pick up speed and steer back to the original course, phones going off, people arriving on the bridge, and him having no idea what happened.
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Yes.
Ever since 1:50 PM on the 17th, I have been doing so. See My #204, posted at that time.
In fact, At #73 on this very thread, I posted the ACX Crystal's tabular AIS data for the period surrounding the collision, and posted the track in far more detail...
Bottom Line: The collision INITIATED ACX Crystal's bizarre maneuvering. The collision was not a result of that maneuvering!
I suspected as much.
Thanks
When on deployment south of the Mekong Delta, at night we steam in a random pattern with one of four engines on line. There was no chance sappers could mine us that way. Often, I would look out and see the one light of a fishing boat fairly close, but it would not paint on the radar. There was no metal to reflect against.
Amazing.
On another article about the collision, a former Officer of the Deck (OOD) for a destroyer commented that the captain’s night orders said that if the carrier they were operating with ever made an unexpected maneuver, the OOD was to turn so its stern faced the carrier, ring up flank speed, and thirdly call the captain. That did happen to him one time when the carrier OOD turned the wrong way to get the wind across the deck to launch planes.
My CO had a similar instruction. In both the basic point was to forget about maneuvering instructions or rules of the road. If there was a possibility of extremis, go find a quiet piece of ocean nobody else wants and find it immediately.
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