dalesql: (Default)
dalesql ([personal profile] dalesql) wrote 2017-06-22 03:55 am (UTC)

Those would be people who have no clue about how ships work. The other ship is a massive container ship. They are built to carry boxes from here to there at the most economical speed. They take miles to get up to cruising speed, and their turning circle at cruising speed is a mile or so in diameter. Their top speed when fully loaded is maybe 15 knots.

The Robinson can go at 30+ knots, weighs maybe 10% of the cargo ship, gas turbine powered, which means it can go from normal cruise to full power in less than a minute, even if some of the gas turbines were turned off. It's vastly more maneuverable. It also has better radars, and is supposed to have more eyeballs watching those radars. CIC is supposed to track every submarine, ship and aircraft out to the horizon whenever it is out at sea and report same to the Officer of the Deck. Peacetime or not.

I cannot imagine a likely scenario for a US navy ship in peacetime in normal cruising mode to not be aware of the container ship, absent multiple massive fuckups in CIC and on the bridge. What and how and why await the various investigations. Asleep on watch? Exhaustion of the watchstanders? bad training of the watchstanders? Trusting the automated systems too much? Could be any of the above, or something else entirely.

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