With the steering failure, and "some degree" of navigation, I'll wait for the report.

The rules of the road, 2014 edition, can be found here. It's only 202 pages.

I do know that anyone in the Coast Guard qualifying as Deck Watch Officer or Coxswain must pass the test.

 

Here is an article about the 1.5 nm straights ... https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/08/strait-of-malacca-uss-john-mccain/537471/

estimated 100,000 vessels transient that area annually. Sixty accidents in 2015.

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...s-navy-examine-training-leadership/595345001/

 

With the steering failure, and "some degree" of navigation, I'll wait for the report.

The rules of the road, 2014 edition, can be found here. It's only 202 pages.

I do know that anyone in the Coast Guard qualifying as Deck Watch Officer or Coxswain must pass the test.

I'm waiting too. Under the best conditions a Destroyer might turn close to its own length but that's 500 feet at least.

 

High speed destroyer turns are one thing ... how about a carrier ...

 

@nsaspook

Here's an interesting commentary from the Naval Institute. The Captain (ret) brought up the fallout from Fat Leonard.

 

Interesting read above Joe.
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2017/08/navy_confirms_body_of_dustin_d.html

The U.S. Navy on Friday confirmed that divers have found the body of Dustin Louis Doyon in a section of the USS John S. McCain that was flooded following a collision with an oil tanker near Singapore earlier this week.

Doyon, 26, an electronics technician 3rd class, is a native of Suffield and a 2009 graduate of Cathedral High School in Springfield.
...
On Thursday, divers recovered the remains of 22-year-old electronics technician 3rd class Kenneth Aaron Smith from New Jersey.
...
According to the Navy, the sailors still missing are:

• Electronics Technician 1st Class Charles Nathan Findley, 31, from Missouri
• Interior Communications Electrician 1st Class Abraham Lopez, 39, from Texas
• Electronics Technician 2nd Class Kevin Sayer Bushell, 26, from Maryland
• Electronics Technician 2nd Class Jacob Daniel Drake, 21, from Ohio
• Information Systems Technician 2nd Class Timothy Thomas Eckels Jr., 23, from Maryland
• Information Systems Technician 2nd Class Corey George Ingram, 28, from New York
• Electronics Technician 3rd Class John Henry Hoagland III, 20, from Texas
• Interior Communications Electrician 3rd Class Logan Stephen Palmer, 23, from Illinois

RIP

My at sea experience in a Amphibious ready group meant we were always close to shore, near lots of merchant ships, headed up a river or cove with flat bottom ships that don't turn on a dime on ARG operations like this.

Maybe the Navy (not only our navy -> russian-intelligence-gathering-ship-liman) is filled with incompetent seaman today who have forgotten how to handle ships in traffic or there are too few watch standers as lookouts due to over dependence on automation. If so it didn't happen overnight and the solution won't be a quick one either. Realistic training, training and more training is the long term solution.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...n-navy-tech-cant-overcome-human-shortcomings/

Watch standers aboard modern warships may have more technology to help them, but they still face a daunting task when they enter high-traffic areas as treacherous as the Strait of Gibraltar—or the Strait of Malacca, the approaches to the Bosporus and Dardanelles, and the approaches to Tokyo Bay. In each, hundreds of other vessels may be visible to the naked eye or on the radar scope. The resulting sea of data points can overwhelm even an experienced bridge crew regardless of how good their technology is.
...
It's not clear if the other parts of the IBNS system, such as the electronic chart and surface radar displays, failed as well. But if the bridge watch team was trying to troubleshoot the problem in the middle of overtaking or crossing the Alnic MC (a Liberian-flagged 600-foot oil and chemical tanker), it may have given them little time to recover situational awareness and ship control before a collision. And if they were over-reliant on the electronic systems to provide that awareness, they may have been blind to what was about to happen.

The same is true of the merchant ship that hit the McCain. Based on the course followed by the ship, several sources Ars has conferred with suggest it's highly likely that the ship was on auto-pilot at the time of the collision, en route to pick up a pilot to bring the ship to an oil-handling terminal or to an anchorage to await unloading. The crew may have not even been paying attention when the McCain–which, based on the point of collision, would have had the right of way—passed in front of the ship.

 

I did read on facebook that a lot of ETs were lost. May all our fallen brethren RIP.



Now back to the discussion ...

Training is definitely part of the solution.

I remember when the U.S. Naval forces and the USSR naval forces were playing chicken in the Atlantic.

 

https://news.usni.org/2017/09/18/ad...-surface-forces-puts-early-retirement-request

The removals and Rowden’s request for early retirement come only days before Richardson and Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer are set to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the string of incidents in the Western Pacific this year.

The appearance of Richardson and Spencer before the panel is expected to be more contentious than a hearing earlier this month, when Navy leadership testified before the House Armed Services readiness and seapower and projection forces subcommittees, Navy and legislative sources have told USNI News.

Appearing with Spencer and Richardson is Government Accountability Office director of defense readiness issues John Pendleton, who has guided several reports on the lack of certifications and overwork of the Navy’s forward-deployed forces that have been substantiated by the service.

As to the removals, Bennett and Williams are the fifth and sixth officials to be relieved from their positions in U.S. 7th Fleet following the two deadly collisions between U.S. warships and merchant ships.

 

http://americanmilitarynews.com/201...acebook&utm_campaign=alt&utm_source=davidwebb

 

I see nothing about the new crews needed for this extra rack time.

 

Hot racking will be back in vogue.

 

Cell phones and I-pads ,the cause of collisions in life,metal and social.

 

https://www.stripes.com/news/twitte...newly-activated-beacons-1.490727#.WdPmDHVSwW2

 

There is an easy solution to ship collisions, build one that won't get busted up by sleepy sailors.

 

https://s3.amazonaws.com/CHINFO/USS+Fitzgerald+and+USS+John+S+McCain+Collision+Reports.pdf

McCain:

Additionally, when the Helmsman reported loss of steering, the Commanding Officer slowed the ship to 10 knots and eventually to 5 knots, but the Lee Helmsman reduced only the speed of the port shaft as the throttles were not coupled together (ganged). The starboard shaft continued at 20 knots for another 68 seconds before the Lee Helmsman reduced its speed. The combination of the wrong rudder direction, and the two shafts working opposite to one another in this fashion caused an un-commanded turn to the left (port) into the heavily congested traffic area in close proximity to three ships, including the ALNIC. See Figure 5.

https://arstechnica.com/information...-collision-ultimately-caused-by-ui-confusion/

However, instead of switching just throttle control to the Lee Helm station, the Helmsman accidentally switched all control to the Lee Helm station. When that happened, the ship's rudder automatically moved to its default position (amidships, or on center line of the ship). The helmsman had been steering slightly to the right to keep the ship on course in the currents of the Singapore Strait, but the adjustment meant the ship started drifting off course.

We never had this problem pre-automation, there was one big physical control wheel and one throttle control on the bridge with an old school voice tube down to the engineroom and steering as backup control from the bridge. Here the physical control location got switched accidentally and they lost track of where it went.

Any time the Captain gives a direct order to the helm, or directly orders a change in speed, he automatically has the con, and retains it until he says otherwise.

 

https://s3.amazonaws.com/CHINFO/USS+Fitzgerald+and+USS+John+S+McCain+Collision+Reports.pdf

McCain:


https://arstechnica.com/information...-collision-ultimately-caused-by-ui-confusion/


We never had this problem pre-automation, there was one big physical control wheel and one throttle control on the bridge with an old school voice tube down to the engineroom and steering as backup control from the bridge. Here the physical control location got switched accidentally and they lost track of where it went.

Any time the Captain gives a direct order to the helm, or directly orders a change in speed, he automatically has the con, and retains it until he says otherwise.

Points 8.1 and 8.2 say what I feared

 

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/01/1...nst-commanders-2-ships-in-deadly-crashes.html

 

We never had this problem pre-automation, ...

Interface design is a bitch. I coded the math for my app in a few hours. The damn interface has taken months. You make an endless string of compromises, generally trading as little functionality as possible for as much simplicity as possible. The more time you take, the simpler and better it gets. In a committee project like I’m sure this was, it’s a miracle it worked at all.

 

In a committee project like I’m sure this was, it’s a miracle it worked at all.

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