Captain.....Captain.........

I am detecting the largest Submarine I have ever...................DOOHHHFFFF!

We're stuck....

Subic Bay shore leave?....the sailors were all still drunk from drinking MoJo

gm Creek Dog,

How much you wanna bet that ship's captain is perusing the want ads for cruise ship captains' jobs?

I have an amazing high-tech invention which will solve their problem. It's called a depth recorder and it costs about $200........Oh, it's for the Navy.....then its $2,000,000! I also have radar for $3M.

This guy is driving a MINE SWEEPER and he manages to hit a reef? It's time for this captain to find a new career.

There goes this captains career.

After a night in Olongopo no one can see straight.

This happened at 2:25 am, was everyone on the bridge asleep? Relying on autopilot?

aussieguy..correct me if i'm wrong...but it seems as though the captain has already decided his ship is a destroyer.... of aquatic ecosystems...

also..does anyone else see the irony of a minesweeper running aground?

Sweet! Shore leave in the Philippines. To all the critics, you can have the most expensive and sophisticated maritime vessel in the world and still be at the mercy of the ocean. Chit happens, deal with it.

I can gurantee there's a new captain on his way to this ship and will meet it when it pulls into the next port. The current captain may as well head back to Subic Bay to chug down a few more San Miguels and Red Horses.

Dick, just by your mention of the fair village by the $hit Ditch River I have to say "Greetings, shipmate!"

jw101, I prefer the Singapore Sling myself. Or at least I did 45 years ago when I was last there on the Midway. I think I was there, my memory of that last shore leave is kinda foggy. Anyway, Hey Captain, I'm looking for someone to run my bass boat while I fish. If you can do it without taking out the dock the job is yours!!

Truer words were never spoken Dick. I've spent many a night in Olongapo....

Very embarrassing. The navigators obviously made some serious mistakes.

Well, that is one CO who is going to be looking for a new career. The CO is probably only a LCDR so he does not even have his 20 years in to be able to retire. At this point he will likely end up getting passed over for promotion twice in very quick succession and be forced out of the Navy without making to the 20 year mark. All those years in the Navy and he will not even have a retirement check to show for it. I guess it is time to look for that new career, and quickly.

Never been in the Philppines, but I've had a Singapore Sling in Singapore. Actually, I had 2 and a glass of brandy before heading to the airport for home.

Don't really remember my flight after that...

They were looking for 'land-mines'... :)

Vision: I think it's pretty safe to say, they found one.

Yeah, the Capt. always takes the fall for this kind of incident. No doubt he was actually fast asleep in his quarters and not on the bridge at the time. Some idiot that had the helm and the nav system just ruined a career.

Never mine .

Parallel parking is difficult for many.

Man!! As a former Army Medic.... I feel "out gunned" by all the Salties.... Oh well "A global force for good" even when stuck on reef.

I got a hangover headache just reading the town of Olongopo & it's been since '67 since i was there. The reef can mess up a wood & fiberglass hull. Hope they didn't mess up the hull too bad. The skipper will probably be riding a desk until he gets his 20 in.

Former Army here, I lol'd at this story. Not like the Navy is affected by this, they're like the ChAir Force: They don't even do anything other than just sit around all day. ;)

Oh, really?

Tubbataha Reef.

Even I can find this reef on Google Earth. Maybe they should be using Google Earth for navigation.

Is anyone else alarmed that there is a mine sweeper that is made of wood and fiberglass??

TheKhanKubla

You are quite right.....He will be lucky if they let him be in charge of 3m for the squadron after this......Navy doesn't forgive these types of things.....Captain of the ship is ultimately responsible.

Rob68

????? WTF....Mines are attracted to the metal...hence the wood and fiberglass....no not concerned at all....What do you think sets the mines off? Metal

If they can't find a reef, what the hell makes you think they would be able to find a mine!!!!

@Newswinner101 - Ya, it's not like the Navy had anything to do with the killing of Osama bin Ladin - oh, wait... LOL!

Wood & fiberglass? I mean, at least it's not metal, but I thought minesweeper hulls were made w/ reinforced concrete...

GILLIGAN!!!!!!!!!!!................And this was supposed to only be a 3 hour tour.....a 3 hour tour....!

Peter....Guess your sarcasm bone is connected to your neck bone, which is connected to your sphincter??

Janstince I am pretty sure the last concrete hulled ships were cargo ships from Kaiser launched and used in WWII.

Just melt more ice!

Rob68,

Funny. Listen, the ships hull is wood and fiberglass because it's basically a large and highly sophisticated metal detector.

If the hull were steel..... got it?! That is why. It'll detect itself defeating it's purpose..

They're many different types of mines. Years ago they just bobbed up and down and when they came in contact with a ship, it exploded but the problem was, the currents would carry them all over creation, and without GPS technology back then, they couldn't track them and would run a ship into their own deployed mine.

Then there are the ones that they would achor to the bottom. They, for obvious reasons, would keep a map of their locations.

They would also place them within a channel where they know a ship had only one or two choices of passage without grounding which gave them better chances of a strike. Like a 50/50 chance.

Later...

Remarkable. An 8-sentence article, offering no details, and as of this writing 262 comments most of them drawing conclusions (and some even blaming the incident on President Obama).

Peterdean You almost have it right. It,s the disruption of the Earths Magnetic field by metal hulled ships that set off Magnetic Mines. When a metal hulled ship moves the Earths lines of flux are disturbed, Navy Ships use Automated Degaussing equipment to reduce this effect but can not eliminate it completely. Consider it like a Traffic detector for cars. A loop (coil of wire) is buried in the road, when a car passes over, it disrupts the magnetic field of the loop. This sends a signal to the controller to change the light. It,s a little more complex than this but gives you the idea. Don,t confuse Magnetic Mines with Contact or Limpet mines like those used in movies.

Subic or as we called it in the 60s Sin-City was the place were anything goes. For all you landlubbers it,s the Quartermaster (enlisted) who plots the course and checks the tide and depth charts.

This is a ruse....episode 17 from McHale's Navy. Really not stuck on reef, was crew from McHale's PT boat setup....floating crap game on board and rendezvous point for sailors to come to gamble.....they will sink a Jap sub nearby and say they had set this ship up as a decoy!!!! Thus being heroes for the day, the gambling equipment will somehow be blown up in the battle...thus...no evidence against them......Look closely you will see Tim Conway with foot stuck in anchor chain!!!

creekdog..I know the workings...Is your sarcasmbone with Peter's?

Lordraven...they DID find a reef, lol Thats the problem...

Magic Rat-6800656 Dick, just by your mention of the fair village by the $hit Ditch River I have to say "Greetings, shipmate!"

Not shipmates, as a Marine I had the pleasure of your USN chauffeur service to Viet Nam.

Maybe the US Navy should use a weight and a string and sing out quarter twain, half twain, mark twain, as was done on the mighty Miss.

Then again, maybe there was infact some sort of equipment malfunction, bad chips, bad caps, or maybe the depth sensors were turned off becasue they made too much noise in the heaedphones for the guy with the hangover. Sorry. Couldn't resist it.

All kidding aside, this is embarassing. We spend a lot of money folr these ships. You would think they would stop hitting other ships or running aground.

Give the captain the benefit of the doubt until they find out what went wrong though.

I don't suppose anybody stopped to consider that this might have been an uncharted piece of reef they ran aground on. There are still plenty of such around, especially in the Philippine Archipelago.

Ed-NavDoc

I don't suppose anybody stopped to consider that this might have been an uncharted piece of reef

Obviously not The US Navy Ship that ran aground... Not like we are at war with the occupants inside this Heritage Sight at the moment. (-;

This article(s) points out the location of this reef as well as describes a bit more thoroughly what occurred than this truncated version.

News for Tubbataha Reef in the Sulu Sea

1. US navy ship runs aground on Tubbataha Reef

Notsojingo

I must have missed that. I was in a hurry when I read it. My thanks for pointing that out.

Not a problem, Ed. I have done the same thing!

Enjoy the Conf Playoffs!!!

Go Dolphins!!<s>

Ags8th,

Ummmm, wouldn't the water be "deeper" from Global Warming rather than more shallow?!

Good question - I think ice takes up more space than water - so if the Arctic melts then the resulting water would take up less space than the ice and therefore water levels would drop.

Ice does take up more space than water, but since ice floating in water makes the sea level rise (think of the story of Archimedes in the bathtub), there ends up being no change in the sea level when the ice melts. This is why melting Arctic ice (which floats on the ocean) doesn't affect sea levels, but melting Antarctic ice, which is on top of land, does.

More than 20 polar research teams have combined forces to produce estimates of the state of the ice in Greenland and Antarctica in a paper in Science.

Until now different measurement means have produced a wide range of estimates with large uncertainties.

But sea-level rise is now among the most pressing questions of our time.

Polar ice has a tremendous capacity to cause massive rises - with huge potential impacts on coastal cities and communities around the world.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20543483

there ends up being no change in the sea level when the ice melts

Ice below sea level (Icebergs) displaces the same amount of volume as if it were water however, the ice above sea level will displace more volume when it melts down to sea level thus, filling up the bathtub levels even higher.

Creek Dog

Ice below sea level (Icebergs) displaces the same amount of volume as if it were water however, the ice above sea level will displace more volume when it melts down to sea level thus, filling up the bathtub levels even higher.

Now you've done it .... asked for a physics lesson ;)

The mass of ice (water in solid form) is the same as the mass of water in liquid form, because they are both water. However, the density (mass/volume) of ice is lower than the density of water. That's why ice floats. That's also why water level rises when floating ice melts. When the ice melts, the floating portion has to displace enough water to absorb its mass.

Creek Dog, since I know you are an outdoors kinda guy, I'll give you a counter-intuitive example using a different view of displacement that has always provided me with some entertainment value on fishing trips:

Suppose you are fishing. You take your boat to your favorite spot and drop anchor. When the anchor drops into the lake, does the water level (1) rise, (2) fall, or (3) stay the same.

Think about it.......

When you are in the boat, the lake displaces a volume of water that has the same mass as you+the boat+the anchor. The density of iron is greater than the density of the anchor .... that's why it sinks. So when you throw the anchor overboard, two things happen. The anchor displaces a volume of water equal to the volume of the anchor, and a volume of water equal in density to the anchor raises the boat. Since water has less density than iron, the volume filled in under the boat is greater than the volume displaced by the anchor, and the water level in the lake falls.

Haved a nice day.

So the people who say that with the melting ice the oceans will recede. We now don't have to worry about our coast lines being flooded due to global warming. Thats a load off.

G-morning professor Bill, LOL.

Thanks man!

I posted my information from the web-site however, very good physics lesson.

The way they measure a ships weight is by it's displacement of water so, while a ship (or boat) sits in the water, it's displacing the water outwards in turn, rising the water levels correct or incorrect?

Of course you also have to weigh in the factors of salinity and temperature.

Take care....

Creek Dog

The way they measure a ships weight is by it's displacement of water so, while a ship (or boat) sits in the water, it's displacing the water outwards in turn, rising the water levels correct or incorrect?

Correct. Displacement tonnage is the actual mass of an empty ship, measured in the tons of water it displaces. The volume of water so displaced is greater than the volume of the ship sitting below water line, so the water level rises.

The ice that is melting is not all in the sea but also on the land!!

@Creek Dog

Well that reef used to be an island when they went into the harbor....

Wouldn't a simple experiment (about ice/water) be to fill a glass with water and few ice cubes? Don't touch it. Let the ambient air temps melt the ice cubes. The amount of liquid in the glass remains constant. It won't overflow like what is being suggested by melting ice.

Morning Creek Dog & Denver Bill

I think there is a Navy recruiting station thats calling your names. :)

They obviously need the help.

While denver bill 2's physics lesson is correct, it leaves out a crucial aspect that is more relevant to the discussion. The flaw in the theory about the water falling is that much of the ice is over land, or above sea level in Greenland, and Antarctica. It is often as much as three miles thick, so when it melts, and flows back into the ocean, the sea is rising.

If sea level were not rising, we would not read stories about the threats to coastal, and low-lying islands around the world.

According to the National Geographic, the oceans are currently rising at approximately 3.5 millimeters (.14 inch) per year.

http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/critical-issues-sea-level-rise/

And therefore in Denver Bill's physics lesson, if your boat is floating out in the water without you or your anchor in it and you throw your anchor in while standing on shore as your boat floats off, the water level will rise.

Lol I just finished taking physics, and some of the arguments I saw here hurt my head

I just have to toss one more peice into this little argument that I didn't see mentioned. Waterlevel aside for the moment, The addition of melted ice to the water will also adjust the specific gravity (salinity) of the water. Lower salt content makes a ship draft in the water lower due to less boyancy. Any scuba divers out there can tell you it takes more weight to sink the same diver in the same equipment in salt water then in fresh. Therefore the minesweeper was drafting lower due to global warming.

I'm sorry I can't even hold a strait face while typing this. Bunch of Morons, someone wasn't watching one of their charts and screens. Mistakes happen but wow, this is one you should have tried to keep quite.

"Quite" what? Quite quiet? Well, "peice" out! (And be careful about to whom you refer as a "Bunch of Morons".)

Could sea levels rise from ships, worldwide, displacement of water? Not to mention submarines, shipwrecks (even sunk they are displacing water) and privately owned boats. IMO that's a lot of displacement and wonder if anyone has ever considered this in their "calculations".

WOW! I didn't think I would get this much of an eduction from the internet when I fired up the old machine this morning. Had I known, I probably would have stayed in bed and played hooky.

I have read some interesting things here before, but this just blows the boat out of the water.

I know it was a cheap shot, but I couldn't help it:)

Thanks to all for the new knowledge, now I need to take something for the brain freeze.

Enjoy the day.

I think the only ice we need to be concerned about was how much was melting & diluting the glass (es?) of rum the CO drank before he passed out in his bunk!

Justopit

Could sea levels rise from ships, worldwide, displacement of water? Not to mention submarines, shipwrecks (even sunk they are displacing water) and privately owned boats. IMO that's a lot of displacement and wonder if anyone has ever considered this in their "calculations".

If you compare water displacement of the worlds boats, ships and submarines to the worlds oceans, it would be like dropping one single grain of sand in a wheel barrow full of sand. Yes, it'll make a difference but on an unmeasurable scale since it's so minute.

About 70 percent of the Earth's surface is water-covered, and the oceans hold about 96.5 percent of all Earth's water but the weird thing is that, if you create a sphere (ball) out of all the worlds water and compared it to the size of the earths sphere, it would look like a ping pong ball next to a 2 foot round beach ball.

Sounds crazy but true. This is because the face of the earth is "covered" 70% in water but, of course, does not go all the way through so it acts like a puddle on a very large scale.

Honest admiral. That damn reef snuck up on us, all stealth like. No way to sense it. Hick up.

The reef used to be a mountain......If he waits long enough, more ice will melt and it will free itself.....

Have you ever captained a ship? How do you know they didn't lose their mains, hydraulics, or any of the myriad of problems that can occur aboard a ship?

It does not matter, the Captain is ultimately responsible for the ship. The reason the ship ran aground will not be pertinent at his hearing. I've never heard of a ship running aground and the Captain NOT losing his/her job.

Yep, it does not matter what happened or who was at fault. I was on a ship where the previous captain before I got on it hit a Greek fishing boat while pulling into port. The fishing boat crossed the path of the warship and these things don't stop or turn on a dime and pulling into a harbor is a tricky thing anyhow. There's not much room for maneuvering a vessel that displaces so much water, everything, the times, turns and speeds have to be timed perfectly. So, even though the ship couldn't stop or turn out of the way to avoid hitting the fishing boat, and the warship had the right-of-way, the captain was still replaced.

No justsaying, but I am a US Navy veteran and there is a script here that will be strictly followed. Running aground is inexcusable, it is a collision with a known, well charted and completely static hazard... a career killing sin in the Navy's eyes. If you had any experience you would have known this, but lack of experience never stopped the ignorant from throwing in their worthless opinions.

As to your comment, you don't have to be able to play a violin to recognize when it's being done wrong. Perhaps you've heard so much valid criticism in your life that seeing someone else get it strikes a nerve.

You can see that well at 2:25 AM?

More likely they charted their position or plotted their course incorrectly.

Who gets underway at 2:25am? They must have been running away from something.

Moat of the reefs there in the Philippines have been destroyed because they use, or use to use, dynamite to fish with. I have been diving there and seen it first hand.

Moat of the reefs there in the Philippines have been destroyed because they use, or use to use, dynamite to fish with. I have been diving there and seen it first hand.

I cant resist and I will preface this with my apolgies to the offended.

Know why the second Polish Navy has glass bottom boats? To see the first Polish Navy. Also anyone else remeber that the Polish Tall ship wqs late getting to NY in 1976.

Obviously you don't have the slightest "nautical" clue. Allow me to enlighten you.

The technology used to detect mines is not the same as that used for general navigation. The article is is pretty lacking in detail, but there are a handful of reasons why the ship could have run aground.

1. Loss of steerageway due to an engine failure
2. Bad weather while navigating shallow waters
3. Failure of electronic equipment - fathometer
4. The Officer of the Deck just plain screwed up.

Looks like the Precise Integrated Navigation System (PINS) did not do the job for this crew.

Precise satellite navigation is a wonderful thing. But don't expect that the charted reefs were identified with the same precision. The OOD (at this time of night, perhaps a junior Ensign) knew exactly where the ship was, but the reef may have been a good distance from the listed position - give the charted shoals a wide berth.

Sorry, Commanding Officer - you will be relieved of duty when they manage to drag her back to port. Those reefs are hell on fancy variable-pitch reversible screws.

mailman8 nailed it! Retired SKCS(SW), USS Patriot MCM-7 Plankowner, OOD qualified!

Ahoy Stevo! I was CHENG and Senior Watch Officer on USS Patriot, Aug00-Mar02.

LCDR, USN(Ret)

Howdy CHENG! My tour was Nov90-Apr96 (blue shirt), Us and the Guardian did the homeport change to sasebo and started the ROT crews! My second tour was on dextrous & gladiator Feb99-May02 (khaki). third tour was in a psych ward (LMAO!).

Stevo; Rot Crew Bravo 93-97.

Hey carp, ROT Crew Alfa here! With this being in the headlines do we need to hold muster?

Small ships are great, if you can handle the rolling, bumpy ride. I was an ET on PG-94 Chehalis. We had OOD-qualified Chiefs also. There was a Lieutenant CO and 3 other officers aboard.

we ran aground on the west side of the pier. We had to have the pushers come over and give us a boost.

Then a couple weeks later we were going out of the jetties into a wall of fog and the CO didn't take combats warning that a contact was CBDR and we got hit by a 950' tanker. Needless to say he was relieved of duty shortly after that. I felt bad for him though he seemed like a good man.

that or Stevie wonder

LOL

LOL!!! You took the words right off my keyboard, Ray!!!

Possible to hit things even when the electronics are working fine. The charts were made from info long before sat-nav, and sometimes things ain't exactly where they should be. Put a big old plus-or-minus circle around all those reefs.

LMFAO!