That is, the circumstances of the encounter jibe with the assumption that the fishing boat was making for a port which took it across the course of the Rappahannock, and that the helmsman was trying to double back to cross behind the larger ship. It's easy for me to imagine that he was simply not receptive to any of the warning attempts, up to the warning shots. When these came, he simply thought they were being shot at, and was not able to realize he was expected to kill the throttle at that point to avoid disaster.
One would then have to believe that this driver of this boat was totally ignorant of what has happened since the USS COLE, and what is going on in the world right now. One would have to assume that Iran has not notified their populace to keep 'wide' of American Ships, or that this type of info has not spread through the 'grapevine' of the populace, especially the sea-faring ones.
They should have just heaved to. That is what I would have done. Idiots.
And I always think of the Iranian airliner that was shot down by the USS Vincennes. The pilot had the mindset that he wasn’t going to even acknowledge the infidels. If he had only done so, he wouldn’t have eaten an SM-2.
Arrogance and stupidity is a poor combination.