Norwegian frigate sinking has far-reaching implications
aspistrategist.org.au
aspistrategist.org.au
https://www.vg.no/spesial/2018/helge-ingstad-ulykken/
Click "Helge Ingstad natt" to see the POV from the frigate.
"Styrbord" means starboard/right, that's basically all the Norwegian you need to know.
See https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/starboard#Etymology for details.
Hence Germanic is correct, but German highly unlikely.
Given the history of the British isles, I would also venture that English is more influenced by Old Norse than Old German.
It's probably hard to tell in which of the languages (Norse, German, English) it originated, because there are little sources in that time (talking mid-first millennium here). From what I know German is a little older than Old Norse (700 vs 900).
Regarding "viking boats", I used that as an example for a type of boat, I'm pretty sure it was a common way of building boats at the time - the Romans used similar rudders. The concept would have been known to all people building ships.
Why doesn't the tanker have better lighting at the back of the ship? It seems to only be easily visible on the front-side from far away. Although I'm not trained to be able to spot a dark ship against the horizon it looked pretty challenging using the night view.
I’m not an expert in visual science, but I suspect it is easier to tell _multiple_ ships apart when they have fewer lights.
ETA: https://www.marineinsight.com/marine-navigation/understandin...
In moby dick the standing order was: Keep your weather-eye open, and sing out every time. Sing out! sing out every time!
These newer ships, esp the stealth ships seem to have dispensed with this feature. Perhaps navies have decided that the advantages of stealth and not having to stand in the cold damp all night are worth the cost of an occasional mishap.
I still think an enclosed bridge is better all round. You can have the tools and reference materials you need at hand and have a reasonably comfortable environment which reduces fatigue - a serious problem when you can't just pull over and stop for a nap.
You can still head out to the bridge wings to get some fresh air and have a look around every few minutes, which is what I used to do.
Worth reading someone like Nicholas Monsarrat for what an open bridge on a small ship in the North Atlantic could be like - utter misery!
If you haven't been out on a powerboat at night, I urge you to try it once. It can be extremely disorienting as often you have zero points of reference, the ability to judge distances is compromised and objects can be completely invisible either because of the darkness when away from the shore, or because of the bright background light pollution from onshore lights. In such conditions, I want to take every piece of information about my surroundings (e.g. radar, sonar and AIS), and make sure that others know where I am and where I'm heading, so turning off the AIS in a busy shipping lane is particularly questionable. As another poster wrote, this is the analogue of speeding on a busy highway with all your lights off and having a matte black car.
This is another thing that happens in Norway all the time.
All we need now is drunk crew.
on most ships, the air search radars are on masts or platforms well above where any people work while underway. but on US AEGIS ships (CG 47, DDG 51), the pilothouse is located above the phased array panels. however, all of the arrays are on the outside of the blocky superstructure, pointing AWAY from the pilothouse. (there was a quote in that message about not leaning over the rails when standing on the bridge wings!)
the navantia design and derivatives (including the Nansens) did not take up this idea. presumably because they're smaller and needed the stability, but i'm just guessing there.
In other words, I don't buy that the high tech gear getting in the way is the issue. The issue is that nobody was watching where they were going by means high or low tech, and thus they ran into something they shouldn't have.
In a combat environment no unidentified ship would been able to get nearly as close without getting some holes put in it.
With the light distraction of screens, reliance on automated systems, reduced crew levels, and leadership focused on things other than sailing ships, it seems to be an argument that has some merit to me.
Everything that can't be dimmed gets a curtain made up for it.
...Oh, right. The things under the electrical tape patch on my laptop :D
Another good reason for relatively barebones or simple equipment is the old Murphy's law that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Both electric and mechanical systems will routinely break, and things that can be repaired with a duct tape, hammer or screwdriver will be much less of a hassle than a fancy digital doodad.
Only in very unusual circumstances did the watchstanders rotate, with the exception of the helmsman and his relief.
Especially not Sonar, Fire Control, Radar and the Quaartermaster.
If that discipline has broken down, ah, crap, may as well leave em pierside, or you're just pushing around REALLY expensive bumper cars.
Not sure if what I'm saying is clear (and I don't have the correct terms, especially in English) but on French navy ships and I guess on US ships as well, the general ambiance is that the situation is always serious and whatever operation is done as if it was in the context of combat. I have been on a few ships of "less relevant" navies (no offense but the Australian or South African navies just see less action) and there the whole crew was usually more relaxed and would behave more casually with regards to unforeseen events.
This is not criticism, but I think frequent action does help with keeping discipline, while infrequent action makes it easy to slip into more comfortable routine.
From what I gathered, the Norwegian army (don't know about navy) is on constant alert for a Russian attack. Norway is very oil rich, and sits right at Russia's border. Russia outguns and outnumbers Norway, and they have experience in similar climates. From what I gathered, the Norwegian military is about as vigilant as I felt the Israeli military is. They may not be attacked constantly as we are, but they know that a single attack could end their way of life in minutes.
Ridiculous scaremongering. Implying that Russia would invade Norway for it's oil, when Russia has 13 times more proven oil reserves than Norway [1]
Rather than highjacking a thread about Norwegian naval accident, in order to disparage Russia, perhaps you'd simply like to claim that Russians hacked Helge Ingstad ?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oi...
I didn't work as closely with the men aboard the South African and Australian ships, so maybe I got a wrong idea there.
Which ship, if you don't mind saying? I know we have nuclear carriers, and had nuclear cruisers (I think all of them are decommissioned now, but I worked on a couple when I was at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in the early 1990s), but I didn't think we had any nuclear destroyers.
Ah, ok.
Candy Crush?
Thinking about it, isn't it strange that ships don't have a TCAS-like system to warn for predicted collisions?
Hopefully they'll have removed the ship from the environment.
Water is quite heavy and dense. When you are jacking around with differential buoyancy, you're dealing with forces that can break the back of a ship. This is how torpedoes often wreak the worst damage. The overpressure can lift a part of the ship and break its back. Flooding the 1st 3rd or a ship could do something similar.
The only viable explanation for that is a) That kind of thing happens dozens of times per day so when it's actually a dangerous situation it's not registered as such (crying wolf), or b) complete sensory overload so that the "umm...yeah...ok" response is from someone who isn't really paying attention to what they are hearing.
Also: my several years old car will scream with alarms if I'm closing on an obstacle, and eventually even start handling the danger for me (if I don't react to silence the alarm). I have to assume the same systems exist for a huge expensive warship. So not only was the AIS turned off - all collision alarms etc were too? Were they practicing some kind of stealth operation where they run without ANY active RF?
I don't know how the military systems work, but I have used civilian maritime systems like the AIS you mention, some of which are built by semi-military manufacturers. Let me tell you, AIS is no silver bullet.
AIS does indeed alert us when another ship is within a predefined radius. But it does not judge whether the distance is closing or widening. If a ship passes perpendicular to our course but less than the defined radius behind us, we get an alarm--exactly the same alarm as if it were directly in front of us and moving toward us. There is no feature like "alert 10 minutes before expected collision."
Also, AIS has a feature where you can send messages as a broadcast to all nearby ships. The message you send could be "SOS SINKING 12 SOULS" or it could be "SATURN MICKEY WELCOME TO SALVADOR PORT" (a real one I saw last week with the names changed). The alarm at receiving stations will sound the same in both cases.
In busy shipping lanes there are multiple of these messages received per day by passers by, and several obviously-not-dangerous proximity alerts at the very least.
You can imagine why people might be inclined to turn them off.
If you compare to any commercial airliner you have transponder for communicating some things, but you also have collision alarms such as the one screaming "TERRAIN" or "PULL UP" if you are about to smack into the ground. That system is a ground radar of some kind.
On a car the navigation system is also separate from the front collision avoidance radar thing that will scream at you if you are about to hit a slower car in your lane.
So from a lay persons perspective it seems absolutely insane that a warship wouldn't have several radar and sonar based collision avoidance systems in addition to (or perhaps working together with) any transponder/GPS (AIS) systems.
Ships have radar too. But my point here is not about sensors--the problem is in the human-computer interface. We can see on the screen that a ship is (or isn't) on a collision course with us, but the systems commonly installed on civilian craft only tell us if another ship is inside our predefined circle. And we have to make that circle fairly small when travelling in busy areas, or there will be alarms at all times.
Another fun, dumb thing about AIS: it does not self-report anchor state. It is a requirement that ships display a shape on their bow to indicate if they are anchored. But there is no dissemination of such data in AIS. It would be hugely useful to know the difference between a ship 0.5 NM away at anchor vs underway. And just imagine if we are ourselves in a busy anchorage--we would want an alarm if a ship underway is coming toward us, but not if a ship we are anchored next to is still exactly where we left it.
It's not that we don't have sensors to know what we need to know. It's that the displays and audible alerts are not ergonomically advantageous, and are prone to fatiguing their users.
Or both TCASes might be saying "traffic, traffic" if someone else is nearby, and not on a collision course, but could end up on a collision course if one or both parties make course or altitude changes. So in this case it's a heads up to look for traffic nearby.
This doesn't take away from anything you said; I just wanted to point out that a solution based solely on self-reported positions can be quite effective too.
I've used civilian AIS systems and I can assure you they can do exactly as you describe. It's called closest point of approach (CPA and TCPA)
> AIS has a feature where you can send messages as a broadcast to all nearby ships.
Consumer AIS does not do this. You are referring to DSC.
A consumer marine DSC/AIS VHF radio can send and receive DSC, receive AIS, and, if they have enough screen/CPU, can show CPA/TCPA tracks. For ocean passages we set our TCPA for 30 minutes and in port 2 minutes.
For me, lets ignore the whole 'should the navy show AIS', and 'the ship was difficult to see because of lighting', not identifying a collision AIS vector seems like a single egregious failure.
Any modern radar can be configured to show CPA based on AIS and on the radar tracks. They can also be configured with an audible/visual alert. The radar was either ignored or misconfigured, both of which are bridge crew problems.
There is zero reason in 2018 for any commercial or military boat operating under it's own power to collide with anything carrying an AIS beacon. This problem was solved in 1983 with the invention of AIS and all commercial boats have been required to have it since the mid-1990s.
It's an unintended benefit of flimsy modern warships, I guess. But it'd be better if they actually watched where they're going.
I think you're seriously underestimating how big and heavy oil tanker are. The oil tanker in this case weighed roughly 20 times (with cargo) what the warship did. From the warships point of view they might as well have rammed an island.
In any case, I'm glad my expectations are wrong.
Could "Sola TS" do more? "Sola TS" still had the tire lights when they drove out in the fjord, although ships should not light that obscures the visibility of the red and green lanterns.
"Helge Ingstad" had noticed the lights that were the tanker and had plans to take a boat and sail around (ie on the side towards the fjord, not on the side towards the country). 3:58 AM said, "The Sola TS" captain is about to make a 10-degree change of course towards the fjord. A little after four o'clock, after Helge Ingstad reported that they would not turn into land, "Sola TS" hit the full hill in the machine. They put the ship in reverse, while the warship came against them at the same high speed.
Why did they sail straight to the lights? A big question for the Havarikommission is what is why the KNM "Helge Ingstad" sails right towards the lights they think are part of the Sturerminal (but actually the tanker). No matter what the lights are, that's something they're on a collision course with.
The war ship first carries out a last minute kidney robbery.
- Why do not they turn away? No matter if they think it's a fixed object or a ship?
- That's what our survey will have to answer. We will look into how they used their technical aids aboard the frigate and how the cooperation was on the bridge, says Ytrehus in the Havarikommisjonen to VG.
Could the ship be saved? The frigate is built with a series of watertight bulkheads that will prevent the boat from sinking. But the accident commission has found two errors in the boat construction . During the crash the frigate got a big flange in the side. Water flowed into the room with the generators that make power to the vessel. And that would stop there. But instead, water flows through a hollow propeller shaft and into the girder room. This is the first mistake they have notified.
The damage About. 45 meters long cracked Adult man in scale Stock and cabins aft generator- room aft machine- room gear room fore machine- room The second mistake is that it does not stop there. Because when the girder room is also filled with water, the water moves on to the aft and the farther engine room.
When do we get a final answer ?: The Hearing Commission has one year to deliver its final report. The police investigate if there has been a criminal offense during the accident, but the investigation will take time. The Armed Forces have set up their own investigation commission, but even who is in the commission is secret .
Google is failing me. Is this a Norwegian saying, or a mistranslation?
Thanks all.
So you have to turn the translated sentence around a bit: "The warship doesn't perform an evasive maneuver until the last moment".
> [only:] From Middle English oonly, onli, onlych, onelich, anely, from Old English ānlīċ, ǣnlīċ (“like; similar; equal”), from Proto-Germanic ainalīkaz, equivalent to one + -ly. Cognate with obsolete Dutch eenlijk, German ähnlich (“similar”), Old Norse álíkr, Swedish enlig (“unified”).
In light of the sentence in question, I wonder how "ähnlich" (similar) compares to "endlich" (finally, surface analysis "end-ly", "ending") historically: The ship finally manouvers in the last minute. Which gives a different tone with opposite meaning.
Given the gloss 'similar' for "only", try "like": The ship, like, maneouvers in the last minute. ... Not quite the same. in fact OE "aenlic" is explainable as 'unlike', too. It has separate meanings. Nevertheless, Ger. "gleich" comes full circle, as it means 'alike' or 'first of all, now, soon', somewhat like 'just' (just the same, just do it), i.e. in "angleichen" (adjust), or German "just in diesem Moment", though this is closer to "gerade" (straight), "gerade in diesem Moment".
Je, jäh, jedoch Est ehst eh du dich versiehst Establish estimate esteem es aus out Eureka eus eu- Finally at last at least mindest min- mint mind mon-ument
"genau" (exact[ly], cp. ') Now narrow. Nur na'ware ... na warte du nur. Na warte. Warte nicht!
Just curious.
Is 'unnamanøver' used in Norwegian in figurative sense, like, for example, to describe action of a fiction hero which got into difficult situation and performs a sudden creative action which leads to a success?
Is 'unnamanøver' is a relatively uncommon word which is not frequently used?
I suggesting it because it can explain the mistake of google-translate based on AI. If in a course of learning AI met this word just a few times and in all occurences word was used not in the direct meaning but in figurative one, then it can be confusing. It can confuse not just artifical intelligence, but a nature one also, Though human probably wouldn't miss that 'unnamanøver' contains 'manøver' which brings associations with 'maneuver'.
Krigsskipet = war ship (german-ish)
gjør = verb to do
først = first
unnamanøver = evasive action
(in other context apparently "nightmare" or "kidney robbery"?)
i siste liten = at the last minute
That is pretty bizzare. I cannot think of any context or situation where "unnamanøver" could possibly mean anything other than evasive maneuver, nor do the Norwegian words for either kidney or nightmare look or sound anything even vaguely close to "unnamanøver"
"Krigsskipet gjør en unnamanøver" translates to "The war ship is doing nightmare". "først en unnamanøver" to "first a young man", "unnamanøver i siste liten" is "last minute kidnap".
Translate seems very confused by that word.
I would assume the correct translation would be something like: "The war ship first carries out a last minute port side maneuver" or "The war ship first carries out a last minute evasive action"
Thankfully no mortalities in this instance. Will the repevant learning occur?
Text snipped from snopes article:
Americans: “Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.”
Canadians: “Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.”
Americans: “This is the captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.”
Canadians: “No, I say again, you divert YOUR course.”
Americans: “THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN, THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES’ ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH. THAT’S ONE-FIVE DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTER MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.”
Canadians: “This is a lighthouse. Your call.”
[1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-obstinate-lighthouse/
But damn, Snopes doesn't seem to have much of a sense of humor. I mean, it's a bloody joke! And anyway, there's no way that they could know about every naval confrontation throughout even the historical era. Pissing matches about course corrections are all too common.
Coast Guard: "What are you thinking about?"
All that happened in this case was the warship's watch changed at night and the new watch mistook the oncoming supertanker's lights for shore terminal lights, mistook the radio warnings, and didn't sound the alarm soon enough.
Also the most effective weapon in modern skirmishes remains, er, weapons. A big heavy ship can still be quickly disabled and/or sunk with a single modern cannon, torpedo, or anti-ship missile.
[1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Regulations_for_...).
I don’t think anyone in any recent warship collision has thought that. Generally they were simply oblivious to their surroundings. The USN root-caused it to sleep deprivation plus cuts in the training budget 10 years ago. Now the generation of officers who missed the training are commanding ships themselves and they don’t know what they don’t know.
But fooling around in a busy shipping lane without AIS or running lights in a ship designed for stealth should be obviously stupid, I’ll give you that!
According to the investigation, Sola TS was mistaken to be a stationary object further away, and the warning received over radio was believed to come from one of the outer portside ships. If that was the information I had at hand, I would not turn starboard either.
However, for warships capable of 30+ kn, I'd guess there are challenges not faced by commercial Azipod usage.
- Why approaching something thought to be a fixed construction didn't trigger any alarms, mechanical or mental? It doesn't matter if the "tanker" was a stationary part of the harbour or a moving vessel because just looking at the change in their relative positions would have indicated a collision course regardless.
- I suppose ships still have radars? Looking at a dot or an edge coming closer and closer on the radar screen should ring some bells.
- The tanker had their identification transponder on as expected: why did not the military vessel get red lights flashing somewhere even if they chose to not turn on theirs?
- Don't ships have any means to communicate emergencies? If the tanker couldn't contact the frigate by radio wouldn't the ship have deck lights or search lights or something that they could starting flashing, as a last resort, as soon as they observed that the frigate would in fact collide with the tanker's course? Heck, couldn't they even shoot flares at the frigate if that's really what it takes?
In the air, accidents usually happen these days because of several things go wrong in sequence. Everything is basically covered for either in procedures or by technology but given enough unlucky sequential failures in various systems makes it possible for something fatal to happen, and sometimes it does.
In contrast, and based on a couple of articles, this sounds like a trivial blunder.
Is there a more comprehensive failure analysis still being worked on, and to be published later?
EDIT: The tanker apparently did manage to contact the fregate by radio. And still they didn't "get it". I would like to see a more substantial breakdown of the causes rather than mere incompetence. Norwegians have lived and breathed the sea for ages, I generally do trust their ability to navigate a ship.
They also absolutely have radars, and normally ones that will sound an alarm when a collision is possible. I suspect the bridge crew disabled the alarm in this case.
There have been multiple collisions attributed to two ships talking to each other, not realising that the ship they were looking out the window was not the ship they were talking to.
Additionally, the sirens are pretty loud and the Captain/Navigator's cabins are normally in a position to hear them. Any CO who hears 5 short blasts in the vicinity of their ship is going to sprint for the bridge.
In short, 5 short blasts is what IRPCS tells you to do - so you should do it.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/06/07/tesla-m...
https://electrek.co/2016/11/29/tesla-model-s-crash-truck/
https://www.newsweek.com/autonomous-tesla-crashes-parked-fir...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2017/06/20/tesla-s...
They shouldn't have sunk; there wasn't that much damage but multiple critical structural systems failed which are present in many other ships from the same manufacturer.
Plot twist. An American Navy person was also on the bridge when the incident occured.
From the (civilian) Accident Investigation Board. Their investigation continues. In parallell, there is a police investigation, and presumably a navy one.
•simulation of civilian status because civilians not taking a direct part in hostilities must be respected and may not be the object of attack (see Rules 1 and 6);[29]
It's not unusual to see a "Warship" on AIS - especially when navigating in crowded areas.
Ex: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:45...
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:56...
>> Norwegian authorities found that confusion on the Ingstad’s bridge was the immediate cause of the collision, but that the ship sank because of progressive flooding. After the collision, water quickly moved through several watertight compartments, apparently via the ship’s propeller shafts, which pass through the bulkheads between the compartments through theoretically watertight openings (known as stuffing tubes or stuffing boxes) that should prevent progressive flooding.
>> Based on crew interviews, authorities determined that the stuffing boxes weren’t working properly, jeopardising the watertightness of the ship. The investigation report warned that the faults that sunk the Ingstad could also be in other Navantia ships, raising questions about a possible problem with the design.
Then again, with a glancing blow to the side of the ship, this should not happen?
How certain should you be that there is a serious design flaw in a product before you feel it's warranted to warn others who own that product that there might be a problem.
> authorities determined that the stuffing boxes weren’t working properly
The why and the how could make the difference between bad design, bad implementation, or bad luck.
EDIT: Yes, I understand they didn't think it was moving, but it would have been obviously close to their line of travel. A bit of caution would have been appropriate.
When the tanker was a fair distance away, they mistook it for the port, even further away. When they got closer to the tanker, it was too late.
The very thing one would expect in such a situation is to slow down, and get an overview of the situation.
That I think is why there were American officers as well on the bridge at the time of the incident as part of cross training.
Which is then disheartening to hear the Maltese registered, Greek owned tankship speak Norwegian, not English, at the time of crisis, and than then same from the onshore vessel traffic service.
Also, you can travel along a huge chunk of the coast of Norway avoiding open seas by being in "fjords", though mostly they are not real fjords just sounds between islands etc.
Where they on a training exercise? The linked VG article makes it sound like the exercise was over and they where on their way home when the accident happened.
https://www.bt.no/nyheter/i/OnOLWO/Forsvaret-beklager-feilin...
According to the commission looking into the accident they did have AIS-monitoring on and had spotted and identified the 3 other ships on their right (which may explain their initial reluctance to turn right, into their path). No one has any good answer as to why they failed to spot/ignored the tanker even as it moved towards them.
You are of course completely right. I apparently can't read maps or forgotten which hand is which :)
I'm afraid there is a worrying trend in these kind of accidents to deflect the blame to the electronics/software. Isn't your job to keep the car/ship/vehicle intact? Technology is there to help you but not to do your job.
This is Norway though. In many other places the captain would be court martialed for that. Here he'd have his promotion delayed a few years at worst.
One problem in this case appears (among other things) to have been too many lights. The Sola TS apparently had full deck lights on, something you're only supposed to have while docked, and which made the boat blend in with the background lights from the terminal.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Avoid-Huge-Ships-John-Trimmer/dp/08...
Let's see it from a different perspective too. The oil tanker captain was able to identify an unknown vessel (with disabled transponder) as warship, guess its type and infer its name, determine the collision is imminent and warn them multiple times. This suggests absolutely inept crew on the frigate's bridge.
Somehow between the invention of ships in 10,000 BC or whatever and the modern day, we've lost the ability to keep them from running into each other.