[Steven Tyler]

1) our ships are running silent to obfuscate their position and direction
2) 0bama promoted incompetent sailors. The good ones took early retirement

[UCANSEE2]

1) our ships are running silent to obfuscate their position and direction

Assuming that you mean that their 'active' radar was off to avoid the radar signal being detected, still the crew on 'watch' had eyeballs, binoculars, and the cargo ship had it's lights on. How could they miss seeing an approaching ship ?