[Taltarzac725]

Originally Posted by CFrance

This is our son's take/guess. He's a Maine Maritime Academy graduate, has spent many years on an outsourced naval supply ship as deck officer, and is currently working operations for a shipping company (Australia). I don't know if he knows about the U turn:

"Just from what I've read:

1.) damage to the starboard side of the Navy ship suggests the Navy ship was the "give way vessel" so most likely at fault. Especially considering all of the RADARs and navigation equipment. Also, when you are in a situation that requires "evasive action" you turn to starboard, always, so hitting squarely on the starboard side indicates they were not sure of the situation or they would have already been turning to starboard and they would have hit the other ship.

2.) the sailors that died were in a berthing compartment. My guess is the bulbous bow of the container ship struck the keel "perfectly" and opened up the bottom of ship and also caused damage that would not allow the sailors to open a hatch and get out.

3.) the impact would've thrown people down. I am guessing the Captain sustained injuries getting thrown into something on the bridge when the stem of the bow of the container ship struck the starboard side of the Navy vessel. All of the damage you can see on the pictures is damage above the waterline caused by the contact of the Navy ship with the stem. Where the damage below the waterline would have been caused by the impact of the bulbous bow; I'm guessing.

4.) This on the surface looks like gross negligence by the crew of the Navy ship. The starboard side being damaged, the amount of crew and navigation equipment on the Navy ship for early detection and avoidance, plus the VHF. Navy ships at night are dark. If you want to find one you look for the "hole" in the lights you can see. They also have RADAR absorbing materials on the hull which would return a small target on a freighter's RADAR. So essentially Navy ships have a higher responsibility in a "non-combat environment" to avoid situations like this.

It's a shame but the number of ships on the ocean are increasing and the size of ships are getting bigger. The container ship could have lost contact or never saw the Navy ship. But the Navy ship should have avoided the container ship and the sailors died due to the officers of the watch not taking early action to avoid the situation."

Thanks for posting this. It should not be too hard to get at the facts in this matter unless someone has an agenda to cover stuff up.