Really cool, thanks. I’m actualy pretty surprised how much of the Norwegian language I could imply into English there. It wasn’t that hard to follow along on that map. Context matters a lot, I guess.
Many of the words are probably old German in origin, the modern German word "Steuerbord" means the same, "steuern" = to steer (see "styrboard", could also have become "steerboard" in English, instead of starboard). The nautic right side was called that way because on those old viking boats, the rudder was a big paddle on the right side.
Styrbord is not germanic, but old norse and literary means the rudder (i.e. steering board), which, as you said, was located on the right side of the ship. Viking ships could therefore only dock on the left-side, hence port for the port side.
At least in English and German the 'board' (or 'bord' part earlier) means 'side of a ship' (but it is derived from board as piece of wood, but not necessarily the rudder, see 'Backbord' in modern German for the opposite side).
Well you argued (without providing any references) that Norwegian "styrbord" was probably from Old German. Given your example of Viking longboats I find it far more likely that the word is from Old Norse.
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.
My correction was merely about the usage of "Germanic" vs specific languages with regard to "old" ;) In general classifying it as "Germanic" is correct, yes. My original distinction was more intended to be about the difference between originally Germanic words vs Scandinavian-only ones.
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.
Norwegian is mostly intelligible with Swedish, but the words that differ from Swedish are very often exactly the same word in English. The Danes live on - in England.
I’ve been meaning to translate the WebGL version embedded there, but never got that far. The downloadable versions (linked under the video) for Windows and Mac both have subtitles of the audio log, as well as the UI. And both have more correct lighting than the video clip that’s embedded on the page.
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.
Interesting – the animation doesn't show red/green lights on the Sola's bow, only way back on the wings – I'm a sailor and I find it very hard to guess where the Sola's prow is as she gets closer in the "Helge Ingstad natt" view.
Older ship designs had a flying bridge, where one or more lookouts would be posted. Open to the air, with very little equipment to distract or lights to blind.
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've done watches on both. When you're really exhausted a flying bridge is somewhat invigorating as you'd expect.
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.
Ha - nice Moby Dick reference! I would add Jack London's The Sea Wolf to that -- both for the collision aspect early in the book then life aboard the ship. Hell - add Dan Simmon's "The Terror" to that list too :)
I believe the Royal Navy was about the last to be keen on open bridges - sure I read somewhere that it was only the threat of nuclear fallout the convinced them that it was better to be inside.
Worth reading someone like Nicholas Monsarrat for what an open bridge on a small ship in the North Atlantic could be like - utter misery!
They had sailors on lookout duty. But apparently the lookouts didn't understand what they were seeing, or there was a breakdown in bridge resource management.
And boats don't do emergency stops, or turns for that matter.
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.
You can’t, in general, put people above the air search radar. (Exercise for the reader: why is it ok for the pilothouse of US AEGIS ships to be located above the SPY-1 arrays?)
the general idea is that it is unhealthy to be right in the beam of a high-power air search radar. when you are in port, you get used to lots of pierside announcements to the effect of "do not rotate or radiate any electrical or electronic equipment while men are working aloft [in the masts of a ship at this pier]."
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.
The 70s era DD I served on had a fully enclosed pilothouse. Everybody standing underway deck watch (except the deck sailors standing lookout watch on the bridge wings and aft, and the signalmen in the signal shack above) was in the pilothouse.
One issue the article goes into is that the sailors were distracted by their high tech bridge computers and so failed to notice the ship they were in the process of ramming. I have trouble understanding how this works - what is your high tech bridge gear showing you if not the surrounding area? Someone should be checking where the ship is going and whether they check with their mark one eyeballs or their high tech ship scanner doesn't seem to matter.
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.
Furthermore, as modern surface warships, with all their technology, are having trouble avoiding lumbering merchant ships, what does that imply about their ability in a hostile environment? Is it that modern threats are so fast, stealthy, autonomous and long-range that ship-handling would be largely irrelevant in combat?
Modern surface warfare involves firing cruise missiles from over 100 miles away. Ship handling is involved to the extent that you need to turn to bring your point defense systems to bear but you don't expect there to be obstacles anywhere nearby.
I’m not a sailor, but I was struck when touring various mueseum ships, including ships in service into the late 70s. They were pretty barebones in terms of equipment, comfort and distraction.
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.
The light distraction thing has been taken into account on all ships I've been on, including warships. Everything that can be dimmed is dimmed, normally to the point where it's not really usable without a hood or turning up the brightness when you need it.
Everything that can't be dimmed gets a curtain made up for it.
Light distraction is real. It's like trying to drive with your headlights off, while a bright lcd panel is glaring into your eyes. Your vision is going to be seriously compromised.
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.
This in itself is a red flag: you should not be changing the watch during transit of a heavy traffic area. You do that well before you get into the heavy traffic area, and you put your highest skilled watchstanders on the bridge, so they have both the experience to handle heavy traffic and the time to build proper situational awareness before the heavy traffic builds up.
This - my time as control room crew on a sub, we knew we were in for as long a maneuvering watch as we had to stand, to get from open water to a pier or vice versa.
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.
Surface nuclear ops here. Served in the engine room of a nuclear destoyer in the 70s and early 80's. We did not relieve the watch leaving port until we cleared into open water. Same with proceding to dock. You stayed until done. When docking the crew that would have relieved the engine room assisted in pulling shore power cables then went to relieve the watch and shut down the reactors and engine room.
I'm just speculating here, but I don't think the Norwegian navy actually operates as if it could potentially be in combat situation at any time.
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.
A few years ago in Tromso I had the pleasure of talking with a Norwegian infantry soldier. Having served in Israeli infantry it was very interesting to both of us to share what we could. Note that this was 2013, before Russia invaded Ukraine.
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.
> constant alert for a Russian attack. Norway is very oil rich
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 ?
> Served in the engine room of a nuclear destoyer in the 70s and early 80's.
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.
This. The watch in that situation would be the A-team, and wouldn't get relieved until the ship is in a lower-traffic area. That watch team would also brief the entire transit for expected hazards, i.e. "watch for tankers leaving the terminal." But also, a sub on the surface puts the conning officer on the bridge, which provides insanely good situational awareness compared to just having a periscope.
I toured a Norwegian coast guard vessel once. The bridge really wasn’t any more equipment filled than a merchant ship, in fact the place the pilot sat had the modern joystick/bow thruster arrangement like modern aircraft have. It looked like good UX to me. I really wonder what happened here
I think there will be much difference in tech equipment between Frigate and Coast Guard ship. The Frigate will have more advanced technical equipment than Coast Guard ship.
Perhaps not. Frigates take a long time to plan and execute, a Coast Guard ship is comparatively more agile. It's not unfeasible that the bridge on a ship going in to service today would have been designed 10 years ago.
I agree, the problem is not the high tech equipment but faulty watchstanding practice. Whoever is driving the ship should not be looking at the high tech gear, they should be looking where the ship is going. Other watchstanders can feed that person information from the high tech gear if needed.
The sacking of the US Pacific commander says a lot about the discipline and practice of military crewmen in modern armies nowadays, in a world of 50 years and more of enduring peace.
It may be a case of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, or more recently the Vista security alerts. People tune out warnings, or even disable them, if they are constant.
They were warned by radio too.
"Helge Ingstad, Turn right." "We will do that, but can't now" "You have to take starboard, you are closing in rapidly. TURN!! There's gonna be a collition here then..."
It does. And then in aircraft there are actually controllers to help us and a little box shouting "traffic, traffic" about 40 seconds before things go wrong. Followed by automated resolution advice if things are really going wrong.
Thinking about it, isn't it strange that ships don't have a TCAS-like system to warn for predicted collisions?
The radars I used almost 30 years ago on merchant ships certainly had collision alerts! But I was also trained that there had to be at least one person on the watch whose sole job was to look out for other ships.
It seems that this frigate sunk much too easily for a warship because of a failure of watertight compartmentalization. (Specifically, the part which allows the propeller shaft to interpenetrate multiple compartments.) There might be a parallel here with the Kursk. The watertight compartments were supposed to be hardened against explosive over-pressure, but I remember seeing a documentary where it was proposed that this hardness was compromised by installations of new equipment. There is also speculation that one of the watertight doors to the torpedo room wasn't even closed, which has parallels with the HMS Hood. (Not all of the ammunition transport safety features were used by the crew on the Hood.)
Well certainly the front shouldn't have fell off I can tell you that much.
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.
I get how they could be confused, not paying attention. But here they are communicating. This wasn't two ships not noticing the danger, (then we should discuss whether tech didn't help). Here one ship DID notice it and even communicated with the other ship.
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?
> 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. 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?
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 I understand correctly, AIS is only a transponder like system, so self-reported positions?
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.
Yes, AIS shows self-reported positions. Basically it broadcasts your GPS coordinates, your ship's name and other details, plus (unfortunately) any random messages you want to send.
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.
There's also TCAS, which is transponder based and will negotiate with nearby aircraft also equipped with transponders - so if there's a collision risk, the TCAS in one aircraft will be saying "climb, climb" and TCAS in the other aircraft will be saying "descend, descend".
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.
> 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.
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.
Can someone please explain to me how a ship hits another ship that is showing full AIS? I have no understanding of what it's like on the bridge of a ship like that and would appreciate some insight. Surely they have a radar plot of themselves and their vector with the other ship, with a point of closest approach readout (ideally connected to an alarm). As a recreational sailor on a 28' yacht that's what we have, and monitoring that in shipping lanes is the priority. Can someone with understanding explain how this (to me) basic precaution might not happen on a professional naval ship with multiple bridge crew?
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.
I agree, this looks like a failure of the bridge crew.
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.
Even my $150 marine VHF radio (which is about average cost/features) on my private boat has an AIS receiver and will scream like a bleeding goat if we're on a potential collision path with any AIS devices within a selectable range. You actually have to disable this feature manually as it is on by default.
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.
> "The Sola TS became concerned about the situation. However, because the Ingstad wasn’t showing automatic identification system (AIS) data, initially neither the Sola TS nor the traffic station on shore could identify the frigate to warn it of the imminent danger."
On the positive side, it sounds like there was very little damage to the tanker which would have had a devastating impact to the environment had it leaked its contents / sunk.
Absolutely. When I hear about a collision between a warship and an oil tanker, I'd expect the warship to rip straight through the oil tanker, with devastating results.
It's an unintended benefit of flimsy modern warships, I guess. But it'd be better if they actually watched where they're going.
It's better for a warship to be light and maneuverable than heavy and cumbersome. The days of slinging shells at each other are pretty much gone - and no amount of armour is going to save you from Exocet [1] in the way that getting out of the way and firing chaff/flares will.
When I hear about a collision between a warship and an oil tanker, I'd expect the warship to rip straight through the oil tanker, with devastating results.
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.
Modern tankers have double hulls, to avoid (or trying to avoid) disastrous oil spills in case of accidents. In addition to other strengthening measures. Quite the opposite of built as cheap as possible.
Warships, on the other hand, are often built for speed, and something has to give. I remember visiting a (smaller) warship once, it could reach 40 knots, and it had a normal hull (not a catamaran or trimaran). The crew said the whole ship was made of very lightweight material.
I doubt they put much armor or modern warships, as speed and maneuverability is probably a far more important asset and modern munitions could probably punch through any reasonable armor you could put on a ship and still make it sail.
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 .
Very weird mistranslation. The word in the original is "unnamanøver" which mean evasive maneuver. Nothing in that word or sentence sounds/looks anything like the Norwegian words for kidney or robbery.
Norwegian here. Indeed, "Krigsskipet gjør først en unnamanøver i siste liten", means "The war ship initially performs a last-minute evasive maneuver". Skimming this, I dismissed kidney robbery as some navy lingo I'm not familiar with, but it's a really bizarre error in translation.
Not entirely correct.. the 'først', in this context, translates a bit differently, something like "The war ship only performs a last-minute evasive maneuver" - which doesn't work that well in English.
So you have to turn the translated sentence around a bit: "The warship doesn't perform an evasive maneuver until the last moment".
Funny enough it does work the same in German and I never lexicalized "erst in der letzten Minute" (only in the last minute) as from "das erste mal" (the first time) and "erstmals" (first-time-ly). Figures that "only" is really "one-ly", but maybe compares to Ger. "ohne" (without), Norse "on" ... English "on" (without). Amazing.
> [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!
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'.
The original is "Krigsskipet gjør først en unnamanøver i siste liten". Now, I don't speak Norwegian but I'm guessing the word "unnamanøver" is pretty versatile considering the translations you get when making minor changes.
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
It's a short sentence so it seems it guessed the wrong context. Just looking at the word though makes one think of sort some of "maneuver".
I'm guessing the word "unnamanøver" is pretty versatile considering the translations you get when making minor changes.
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".
Most likely a mistranslation. I've never heard anything that could be translated that way.
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"
The theme of "too many screens/high tech gizmos in favor of doinf things by hand" seems reminiscent of other HN posts discussing the referred-to US Navy accidents. Couldn't help but be reminded of the "Children of Magenta" YouTube video mentioned in those threads on over-reliance on automation and technology in the cockpit of aircraft during non-standard situations.
Thankfully no mortalities in this instance. Will the repevant learning occur?
Like people with a loaded gun, sailors and officiers of warships think they are invincible and anybody else has to avoid them and not vice versa. I guess the bleak reality after such incidents would give them a cold shower to wake up, but probably too late. All modern warships were designed as if they operate on open ocean only when in reality most of the time they must navigate in world where commercial shipping has grown more strongly than ever before. The most effective weapon for modern skirmishes seems to me simple but heavy built ships designed for ramming :D
Speaking about sailors and invincibility - there's a funny story that's circulated around (false according to snopes [1]) about a particular US and Canadian Navy interaction :) :)
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.”
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.
None of this makes any sense. Modern warship sailors and officers are trained in, and expected to know at a professional level, seamanship, including international rules of right of way [1]. And they've been operating in crowded ports for decades if not centuries, that's nothing new.
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.
Like people with a loaded gun, sailors and officiers of warships think they are invincible and anybody else has to avoid them and not vice versa
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!
While your narrative is a compelling one, I do not see how it maps to the sequence of events leading up to the collision.
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.
As a ham operator the thing I noticed was the missing identification from the party talking.. just 'Helge Ingstad, turn starboard'. And so on. Never a 'Helge Ingstad, this is Sola <"on course so-and-so, speed so-and-so"..'.
Helge Instad didn't (according to the report, and no wonder) understand who they were talking to. Not that the personnel on board Helge Ingstad were much better.
That's hardly a common attitude with Norwegians and their military. The outcome certainly shows poor training and perhaps poor discipline on the bridge, but there's no reason to attribute it to some bravado.
Shipbuilders are designing shaftless propulsion systems for future warships which would put electric motors and propellors in pods under the hull. That would improve hull integrity and reduce the risk of flooding multiple compartments.
- 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.
Ships have a siren (big horn). 5 short blasts is "you're about to hit me". The tanker absolutely should have sounded that as soon as it became apparent that something was wrong.
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.
Yeah I was thinking they could have some sort of automatic collision avoidance system that beeps if it looks like you are going to hit something and then stops the ship if someone doesn't turn it off in case the staff are asleep or checking facebook.
This is a reference to the fact, stated in the article, that Australia, Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands have ships of a similar design built by the same shipbuilder, which may also suffer from design flaws that allowed this one to sink so readily.
And for many of the navies these ships are the biggest most expensive and advanced vessels in the whole fleet. Imagine if the US Navy found out that Nimitz-class has a strange tendency to sink inexplicably
They shouldn't have collided; they weren't paying attention.
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.
If you listen to the Audi recording , at least for me one thing seems clear. The navy personnel onboard the ship are INCREDIBLY ARROGANT when receiving warnings from the incoming bunker ship.
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.
One solution might be allowing false identities in Marine Traffic aka AIS for navy and coast guard ships. They could claim to be civilian ships of same size. Especially while kayaking in Norway the AIS is essential, as bigger ships do not have any methods to detect kayaks except visual.
That sounds a lot like a war crime. Military cant impersonate civilians, as it would open up to the targeting of civilians.
•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]
They could use ID's of decommissioned ships. Or ID's of ships with only seasonal use. The problem is that smugglers and spies soon learn those false ID's if they are not changed frequently.
No in Norway they cannot. The Coast Guard is after Russian Vodka Smugglers and the Navy is watching for Russian Sneak Attack. It does not work if the enemy knows where you are.
Funny thing is that Spanish company Navantia was the first to be accused of this (design errors, inexplicable sinking...) and in this article I still see some indirect finger pointing and yet no proof of that. There is some weird thing going on here.
The initial info is that the ship sank due to design flaws, like water getting through watertight seals. The collision is in no way attributed to the builder but to the ship's crew.
>> 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.
Sure, there are plenty of reasons a good design might still fail. But while further investigation might be necessary, the authorities determined the design might be to blame for the sinking not the collision. It doesn't look like they're trying to pass the blame. The ship may have been still able to stay afloat after the collision assuming the seals worked as expected.
Isn't "while further investigation might be necessary" incompatible with "the authorities determined the design might be to blame for the sinking not the collision." or is it just me?
Think of them as statements of probabilities. "while further investigation might be necessary to be 100% certain, the authorities determined that there his a high probability that the design is to blame for the sinking not the collision."
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.
Maybe but we can't really tell from the article if that's the final report on the investigation and if the builder agrees, hence the might in "further investigation might be necessary". It just says:
> 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.
Keep in mind that news articles are not supposed to replace an investigation report and are only to give more of an outline of the subject. It's just for us laymen and puts very little burden on the involved parties. Certainly less than the official investigation report.
Well the article points out the “water sealed” prop shaft not actually being that even when designed/sold as such. Still would have had the collision but most likely the ship would not have sunk in the case that the water would not have spread throughout the ship.
There are a lot of good comments on this story. What stood out to me in the article, however, was that they thought the lights on the tanker were part of the port. Sounds like a bit of a stupid mistake in the context of what other commenters are saying, but fine, whatever, you thought they were lights of the port. Why on Earth did you ram the port at 17 knots?
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.
Isn't the hierarchy of command specifically made to avoid that. "I thought someone else was in charge" doesn't seem possible on a plane/ship, and certainly not a military one.
It's fast, but they were on official navigation training exercise as part of NATO's massive Trident Juncture exercise. I would assume higher speed and quicker decisions are a normal part of that type of training.
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.
but they were on official navigation training exercise as part of NATO's massive Trident Juncture exercise.
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.
Initial comments from the Navy was that they were going back to port (Haakonsvern), but they later corrected that as wrong. They instead admitted the frigate was instead travelling to another part of the NATO exercise and was using the inland route as training.
They were. And they were in one of the most busy shipping lanes (due to the port being nearby), and a narrow one. There was no reason in the world why they would have their AIS off. What I wonder is if their own AIS monitor was also off? Why didn't they see the AIS signature of Sola TS and the other ships?
I wonder is if their own AIS monitor was also off? Why didn't they see the AIS signature of Sola TS and the other ships?
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.
Well.. those other ships weren't really on their right (at that time). They were on their left (as can be seen on the video of the radar monitoring). The reason stated by Helge Ingstad's radio operator for not turning starboard was because of some reefs to their starboard.
At the time of the crash those reefs were still 750m away (to starboard) though.
That's true, however at the time of the collision the dangerous reefs were about 90 degrees to their right. Compared to steering just a vee bit to starboard to avoid the collision the 750m starts looking very wide indeed.
How can you not see a big ship coming towards you even at night? I mean don't you see it's lights. Furthermore, they were warned repeatedly by radio. I'm sorry if I sound harsh but I can't help but think how they can be so incompetent?
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.
The captain was not at the bridge during the situation though. He was off shift. He came to the bridge after the collision, and took over the radio communication. Very apparent in the way the communication was handled (after the crash).
The captain runs the ship and is in charge of the crew. It's the ultimate authority that comes with ultimate responsibility. If the crew was not seaworthy, letting it sail out if the port is the captain's fault.
Oh, absolutely. The captain has responsibility. It's just that they're not that often on the bridge anymore. That demands a certain level of competence and trust as far as the bridge crew is concerned, of course.
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.
It's a 2009 commissioned stealth frigate, with every navigational aid you can think of (AIS, a range of radars, visible light and FLIR cameras) on the bridge. They also had repeated warnings over the radio.
I'm not sure if the radio transmission from https://www.vg.no/spesial/2018/helge-ingstad-ulykken/ (linked already in various comments) is accurate, but if so, there were no warnings over the radio. Instead, they were directed to change heading but not informed why. I don't speak Norsk, but it seems like the first time "collision course" is mentioned is at 04:01:08, ten seconds before impact.
The first call to the warship was 03:10, some 1:20 before the collision. Followed by two warnings they are on collision course.
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.
Interesting article and there are always better precautions and procedures that can be put in place. I am uncertain about the claims of "far-reaching implications". (a bit click-baity perhaps?) Depends on your perspective I suppose...
I gather the far-reaching implications are that a lot of other ships may be similarly mis-designed (to prevent the progression of internal flooding); as the article says.
Is it really the case that all these bazillion dollar ships are made without simple front radar that even Honda Civic comes equipped with? Also, no $500 nighvision for person on the watch?
It looks like a big contributing factor in the recent US destroyer collision was lack of sleep on the part of the crew. Are Norwegian crews also chronically sleep deprived?
Considering the accuracy of the radar systems (and dozens of millions of dollars spent on them) mounted on a modern frigate or destroyer, a warship crew should REALLY NOT be reliant upon other vessels' AIS to avoid collisions. Warships are maneuverable and fast. Physical failings of the ship aside, I think there's something wrong with the complacency of the crew training.
Funny how the pictured crew widely circulated on pages like these wasn't even on the ship.
Norwegian Royal Navy has had women serving as captains for a couple of decades. This isn't something new, the only thing that has changed in recent years is that conscription is mandatory for everyone.
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.