US navy 277 million pile of scrap

[PA5COR]

The U.S. Navy will hack apart a minesweeper ship worth $277million that is caught on a coral reef in the Philippines - rather than risk further damage to the sensitive ecosystem.

The USS Guardian has become a political and logistical nightmare for the Navy since it ran aground on January 17 in the Sulu Sea.

Navy engineers decided their only option is to destroy the 225-foot ship by cutting it up and hauling it away on a barge, instead of trying to drag it off the reef.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ilippines.html

[N8YX]

That grinding noise you hear...it's the sound of a skipper's career going right down the head.

[W3WN]

I forwarded the link to a former US Navy Captain in our club. He still has connections (he was present at the USS Enterprise decommission ceremony), so I'm curious as to what he can find out.

[kb2vxa]

"A Navy spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. James Stockman, said last week that the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which prepares the digital navigation charts used by the Navy, has reported the location of the reef was misplaced on a chart by nine miles."

That looks like it in a nut shell. Look at the position of the ship on the edge of the reef, the bottom comes up pretty fast so I doubt sonar would have detected shallow water until it was too late. Don't forget a ship that size can't stop or turn on a dime either.

[W3WN]

Heard back from my Navy Capt(Ret). I asked him if this story was "for real?" (and forwarded the link to him), and his answer:

Probably, in these days of severe to irrational budget cuts. I suspect ship is near end of life anyway, and the whole lot of them may be decomissioned soon.

The more interesting story will be what happens to the CO -- if he was doing everything right and the chart was wrong, he should survive. The article alludes to his super sonar that could have detected the reef -- probably not, if not actively sweeping, it wouldn't have been deployed.

[N2RJ]

I suspect ship is near end of life anyway, and the whole lot of them may be decomissioned soon.

This is most plausible.

[W5GA]

I also suspect the bad chart as the culprit. When we went to Australia on the USS Houston (SSN713) in 1993, the most up to date chart for part of the voyage was a British Admiralty chart from the late 1800's.

[NQ6U]

I also suspect the bad chart as the culprit. When we went to Australia on the USS Houston (SSN713) in 1993, the most up to date chart for part of the voyage was a British Admiralty chart from the late 1800's.

One thing that comes out of this: they know exactly where that reef is now.

[N2NH]

Don't we have satellites to map the oceans?

[kb2vxa]

If satellite images aren't properly translated to nav charts they won't help sailors a bit. The century old chart was a joke, the reef misplaced by nine miles wasn't.