I find it vanishingly unlikely that any ship's Captain, no matter how incensed at refusal to co-operate would deliberately try to 'ram' a cruise liner six times it's size in an attempt to make it change course. That is as unbelieveable as it is impractical.
No way is a little warship like that going to force another ship to change course by barging into her - that's just not going to work and would be guaranteed to cause severe damage to boot. That's like a Ford Escort trying to make an artic change direction by ramming it. Sorree - not going to happen in reality!
Far more likely is that Hot-head 'Bolivarian" skipper got pissed off that shots didn't deter the liner and in the heat of the moment tried to intmidate her by some vigourous and aggressive close-to gung-ho! manoeuvering in the hopes that she'd shy off in the direction desired.However as the liner's skipper evidently had cojones they stood on - or perhaps weren't able to react quickly enough to an unexpected manoeuvre to avoid Commander Suicide and the result is the patrol boat got herself pinned across the bows of an ice-strengthened ship which by the looks of it more or less T boned her.
The vertical scrapes on the bow of the liner look as though she rode up over the corvette (as that acute angled ice-strengthened prow is designed to do) and then using it's weight slipped downwards, pushing the other vessel down as it sliced into it. Note, all those witness marks show the Resolute's bow descended almost vertically into/through whatever it hit, that was no glancing or oblique blow.
However it couldn't possibly have done that at a speed of idling on one shaft while the other was under maintenance as has been suggested. The liner must have been travelling a great deal faster than implied by the statement issued by its owners - so there's another mystery added to the mix.
It is also worth noting that there are allegations online that the liner had previously dumped it's pax without recompense upon being unable to pay for fuel and was maybe legging it to some port of 'safe haven' for such bankrupt cowboys - if indeed that is true either!
There is evidently a great deal more going on here than is being reported.
Shame it happened at night or there'd be a bloody interesting video to see.
Still, moral of the story is;
a) might is likely to be right
b) Civilian does not mean guaranteed victim
c) bullies get their come-uppance
d) Bad seamanship generates bad outcomes.
e) Piss of Maduro badly enough (and how!) and wish you'd gone down with your ship.
as eny fule no.
Last edited by meleagertoo; 4th Apr 2020 at 00:54.