IIRC, Captains rarely are allowed the excuse of people below them being at fault, especially for collisions or groundings. The thinking is that the Captain's job includes putting people of the job, and leading them in such a way that those incidents either don't arise, or are caught before they occur.
I also had a former Navy Captain tell me that the US Navy believes in "luck," too, when everything else is equal. Some Capatains are simply luckier than others. Not smarter, just luckier.
Case in point, this particular Captain told me he was moving his nuclear powered cruiser out of dock in San Diego, all 500+ feet of it, and, being in a line of docked naval vessels, he decides he's going to do a reverse u-turn right out of the dock to end up pointing seaward, and then just cruise out, instead of backing out.
Well, the other pier was roughly 500+ feet away. So as he's swinging the bow around from the planted stern, he realizes that he might not make it. So he sounds the collision alarm, and all the sailors on the other ships come out to watch... and his bow juuuust misses colliding with a ship docked across the inlet.
So I asked him what he did then, and he replied, "I issued a stand down order, and sailed out of the port."
And I said, "that's it?" And he said, "yep, the Navy likes lucky Captains."
So I asked him what would have happened if he had actually hit the other ship with his bow.
"My career would have instantly ended, and I would have been court martialed for breaking regs," he said.
I laughed, and then asked, "so why take such a big risk"?
He laughed right back and said, "because I'm lucky!"
A passing boat pulled the Decatur off the next day. Nimitz turned himself in and was court martialed.
THAT is character.