It occurs to me that the Captain may have been given direct instructions over the radio "from home" (The Capital) to do whatever is needed to commandeer that vessel. When firing shots didn't do the trick and he reported back "they are not following instructions to come with us to port" then someone (significantly senior to the Captain) "back home" told him to shoulder/ram the other ship to influence their course.
The Captain, not wanting to be relieved followed his orders to the letter.

Did it happen that way?
No idea, but it might have.
Micro management has become quite the thing in this information age of instantaneous communications.
(Glad to see that all of the ship's personnel were retrieved from the water).

Video Emerges Of Venezuelan Navy Ship Firing On And Colliding With Cruise Ship Before Sinking

From the video it seems they parked themselves at close quarters beam on in front of the Resolute in an effort to impede the Resolutes progress, extremely low speed collision.

I should like to doff my cap to the captain of the 'Resolute', he managed to sink an aggressive naval vessel with his ship basically out of action with engine problems, well done sir, your ship certainly lived up to her name.

So this was right before the Venezuelan Navy became the Venezuelan swim team right?

Coat, hat...

Now they have a third submarine.

Sorry, the Olympics are cancelled for this year, but at least they were ready. :ok:
(And thanks for the laugh, the Missus looked across the room at me and asked "what's so funny over there?")

They should get together with the Norwegian navy for some exercises, now that would be interesting to watch.

I can see the captains report now, I came upon a disabled ship adrift, I fired a warning shot across his bow then tore mine off... And if that wasn't bad enough I then brought home the video showing how inept we were, rather than letting it go down with the ship.

Never use your foot to stop a rolling truck :{

When the time comes they could make a nice modern office desk out of her decking and send it to the President; a Resolute desk two.:E

A novel way of breaking the ice with the Venezuelans.

Is that a female voice you can hear on the bridge of the Venezuelan vessel.....?
Hat, coat,

Was there not a very smart man who once said..."I think we will need a bigger boat"!:)

Chief Brody!

An ad lib I believe...

It looks like the Captain of the Resolute had a great day, they even managed to wiggle out of a potential dilemma involving rescueing the patrol boats' crew and returning them to port.

The Resolute Captain had an issue that makes his actions in not rescuing understandable. There were 32 crew on his ship and he would have been rescuing 44 possibly still armed opposition. What do you think the outcome would have been had he rescued them? Would not have ended well for the Resolute crew.

Megan,
I agree with your post completely, sorry if my post may have come across as slightly sarcastic.
I was thinking the skipper had a win in not being possibly held in port if he had to deliver the rescued crew.

The ship can take 146 passengers with about the same number of crew. Properly victualled with disposables the Venezuelans would have got around 6,000 toilet rolls.

ROFL, could you post me a new keyboard please! Current one is covered in a spray of red!

The Venezuelans should have outsourced the job to Somalia.

Their seafarers have a lot of experience in this type of operation.