200406 Watch Out For Submarines

Watch Out For Submarines
MARS Report 200406

It was a misty morning in the 1990's. I was on watch as a duty officer with two sailors on the bridge. My ship was a general cargo ship with a length of 127 metres, proceeding at 14 knots in Yellow Sea of China bound for Dalian on a course of 330 degrees true. The visibility was about 1 nm, wind force 4 Beaufort and no other traffic was in the vicinity. The Autopilot was being used.

I observed a weak echo ahead on the radar screen 3nm away and closing. The echo was weak and occasionally disappeared, giving the impression that it was interference or a floating object drifting in the sea. As the target was approaching with apparently no change to the compass bearing, I paid close attention to it and ordered the two sailors to keep sharp look out. As the visibility was not too bad we tried to sight the target but we didn't see it even when the distance was reduced to less than 1nm.

I ordered to change to manual steering and gave a "starboard 20" order. When my ship had altered course 70 degrees to starboard, we saw on the port abeam not more than half a mile away a vertical pole on the surface of the water which was moving. A little while later we could see the base part of the pole. It was obvious that the pole was a periscope and the target was a submarine and it had not taken any action to avoid collision.

The following report on collisions with submarines was recently noticed in a publication:

The Captain and crew of a US nuclear submarine which collided with an LNG tanker near the Gibraltar Straits are criticised in a US navy report.

It says the USS Oklahoma City's watch keepers were inadequately trained for the difficult manoeuvre of surfacing in such a crowded waterway. The officer of the deck was experienced but over confident and should have taken more care. The commanding officer, it claims, acted negligently in failing to prepare his crew properly for the operation and failing to create a "questioning" environment on board in which his watch team felt comfortable seeking help. The submarine struck the gas carrier Norman Lady as it surfaced to periscope depth. Both vessels were damaged in the accident, which came less than two years after another submarine, the USS Greneville, sank a Japanese fishing boat and killed nine people while surfacing.