Blue Water Justice

COULD THIS TRAGEDY HAVE BEEN PREVENTED?

by OPOVV, ©2017

(Jul. 5, 2017) — “How ‘bout that Navy ship that got hit by that container ship off of Japan?”

“The only lucky thing about the whole incident was that more weren’t killed.  And the Captain was injured.”

“That’s true. So what’s going to be their sorry excuse, that the Navy ship had the Right of Way?”

“The OD* was probably a Lieutenant Junior Grade who just got his Ship Driving Permit that afternoon, which makes the XO** responsible for issuing a fraudulent license.”

“Yes, that goes without saying, but a lot more heads have to roll. What about radar and radio? Doesn’t that ship have surface-to-surface radar? Even a dingy has radar nowadays.”

“I’ll tell you what happened: the OD was a young yuppie-know-it-all from Bar Harbor, Maine, who learned to sail before he could walk and he had the right-of-way (at least for sailboats) and that’s all there was to it. I’ve no doubt the civilian container ship violated the Rules-of-the-Road but some of our guys died and were injured, so it doesn’t make a hoot of difference who was right and who was wrong.”

“Okay: we’ve got the OD who walks the plank first, that much is obvious.”

“And the XO is second.”

“What about the Captain?”

“Forget the Captain: he’s history; gone; asked to retire or retired for the good of the service. He’d be lucky to collect a pension; probably retire at least one pay grade below what he was.”

“There should’ve been at least 2 Life Buoy Lookouts on the 0-2 deck, maybe 4, like how many they have on a cruiser.”

“Maybe it was too cold.”

“Too windy.”

“Too dark.”

“Maybe they wanted some more rack-time.”

“Maybe they were looking at the shooting stars.”

“Maybe they told the bridge but the OD had it all under control.”

“So it depends what they saw and what they reported. Then there’s the others on the bridge, like the helmsman, lee-helmsman***, messenger and a Boats, you know, a First Class or Chief Boatswain mate who could take over in case something happened like what happened.”

“By my count we make 7 walk the gangplank, the same number that died, right?”

“Right: that ought to satisfy Poseidon.”

“Satisfy a sub?”

“That, too.”

[*OD: Officer of the Deck. In-charge dude while the Captain was absent from the bridge or deck.]

[**XO: Executive Officer: Ship’s driving instructor, among other duties.]

[***lee-helmsman: operates the bridge engine order telegraph that connects the bridge to the engine room.]

END

“Dreamin’“

OPOVV