Giving the benefit of the USN's experience of collisions????

It was reported this morning on Snafu that 4/5 of the navigation officers on the frigate were women. Talk about drivers.....

The tanker had the right to be there: she had just left the loading berth and aiming to sail diagonally to the correct side of the fjord. I imagine that she would have not moved off the berth when she did had she known the frigate was coming down the fjord towards her at 17 knots, but the lack of AIS on the frigate meant she had no way of knowing in time.

The navigators on the frigate bridge had obviously lost situational awareness. It is easy, when in training mode, to get in to a 'bubble', and concentrate on completing the set task, while forgetting about the real world outside. Even a last minute 5 deg alteration to starboard would have saved her, had the navigating officer listened to the tanker, but switching on the AIS and / or slowing down earlier would have been even more helpful.

2 large 'sheerleg' lifting vessels are now en-route to lift the frigate off the sea-bed (from 20 m down) and onto a semi-submersible vessel. However, there is worry that the frigate is unstable, and may slip into deeper water before they can get her lifted. Apparently she has almost 500 tons of fuel on board.

I doubt if the tanker would have used AIS as an anti collision aid, it would have been using its radars/ ARPA. The AIS may have been used as an overlay on the radar to give target informaion such as name, type and destination. The lack of AIS on the warship would have prevented identification, but the anti collision info would be the same as any other ship on their radar as a target. The warship should have been using and paying attention to their radar/ARPA as well.

After the tanker had left the loading jetty, she saw the frigate coming down the fjord on her radar, but had no way of knowing which ship it was, because the frigate's AIS was switched off the officer of the watch called the VTS to ask, but the VTS similarly had no idea. The tanker then hailed 'the unknown ship' by radio to ask her intentions, but had no response. A few minutes later, the tanker anxiously called the VTS again, who then said that it was possible that the unknown vessel was the frigate, but had no info on her. The tanker then called the frigate by name, and got a response, but little sensible reaction from them.

Seems a stunningly deficient design for a Norwegian warship, watertight compartments that are anything but.
It is incomprehensible to me that such a deficient product was accepted by the Norwegian navy, especially considering that Norway's Det Norske Veritas is the world leader in seaworthiness appraisals with DNV-GL.

An article from The Drive with analysis of the preliminary report:



We Have The First Official Report On Norway's Sunken Frigate And It Isn't Pretty - The Drive

Ouch. Not good reading.

Pound to a penny, the stability modelling assumed w/t shafts, whereas the detail somewhat different. Stuffing boxes (glands) ought to have shown up during compartment air test. If tested.

It's always the detail with W/T integrity - similar issues with Nottingham and Endurance.

It'll buff out.......

Nothing a stirrup pump and a bucket of WD40 won't sort out.

Don't forget the gaffer tape...

So what's the plan, are they going to fix it or scrap it?
Or is that still TBD?

along with a few careers, one suspects

Fascinating link ... thank you!

Amazing what people could achieve in those dreadful days of yore.