NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: USS Fitzgerald collision with container ship
From: Bill B
Date: 2017 Jun 18, 14:41 -0400
From: Bill B
Date: 2017 Jun 18, 14:41 -0400
On 6/18/2017 1:03 PM, John D. Howard wrote: > If I am driving a sports car on I-5 in LA and an 18-wheeler crosses into > my lane there is not much I can do. An interesting analogy. In your scenario the 18 wheeler (like the steam roller) darted out in front of you. One might also suggest your sports car trying to beat a train across a railroad crossing, or beat an 18 wheeler while crossing a busy highway. Sadly there are boneheads that die on a regular basis doing just that. In all the above cases your options were limited to the course of the road. A train has little to no options. The ships had more degrees of freedom than the car/truck. There are too many unknowns now to point a finger at the one culprit. Suffice it to say the collision was almost certainly avoidable if COLREGS were followed--or even common sense. The real story for me is the loss of life and injuries which were almost certainly avoidable.
