Contrite captain is all at sea

The Guardian ^ | July 9, 2002 | Richard Norton-Taylor

[ArcLight]

A Royal Navy board of inquiry will today fly to Lord Howe Island, 200 miles north-east of Sydney, to discover just why the destroyer HMS Nottingham hit a rock in well-charted seas.

Commander Richard Farrington, captain of the ship - which would cost an estimated £250m to replace and has state-of-the-art navigation equipment - said yesterday he had feared the Nottingham would sink. "It hazarded the lives of 250 men and women. We have done significant damage to a major British warship," he said.

He added: "This is not a good day for me." Asked what caused the accident, he said: "A combination of unfortunate circumstances and human error. This is quite the worst thing that has ever happened, quite the worst. Character-building stuff."

[ArcLight]

Andrew Sullivan's blog linked to this amazing story. Indeed, it's depressing how amazing it is. If only the typical politician had half the backbone of this unfortunate captain...

[Billthedrill]

Shades of "Knox on the rocks." This stuff does happen and the CO always goes down for it.

The reference is the the USS Knox (DD-1052), which ended up on a reef near Hawaii because the OOD heard the breakers, assumed that it was a tidal wave (I am not making this up), and turned toward it as evidently one is supposed to do into tidal waves, except for the fact that at sea a tidal wave is only about three feet high...

[pabianice]

[pabianice]

[maximus@Nashville]

If this is the sort of thing that builds character, I think one would prefer to do without!