Dag! What Have You Done

[Trevor.Dennis]

I've been following this story since the original incident ten days ago, but it just keeps getting better, so I have to share.   I'm not entirely sure how Dag is involved, but it is Norway, so it stands to reason that he must be.

It started with a billion krone frigate coming off second best after colliding with an oil tanker in a Norwegian fjord resulting in a huge rent in the side of the frigate.  The oil tanker is completely undamaged, so  it might be time for the world's navies to rethink their buying strategies.

They moved the sinking frigate to the rocky shoreline to prevent it from sinking.   Then embarked on a rescue mission trying to pull it up enough to patch the holes, using best quality Norwegian steel cable...

...which broke  and things have gone from very bad, to much worse.  I love the wee red life-raft.  Apparently no other Norwegian warships would go close to the life-raft in case they collided with it, and sank (the worships... not the life-raft).

Norwegian company Sotra Anchor & Chain says they should have used chain, which is stronger than steel cables, but the navel salvage team didn't ask.   This was the same navy that when contacted by the Maltese oil tanker's bridge asking if they knew they were on a collision course, responded, 'don't worry. we have it under control'.

Dag tells me that they don't have insurance for their warships, and  I can't imagine them getting insurance in future.  Well maybe for  the their little red life-rafts, but only third party liability to cover all the boats that sink after colliding with it.

I've not seen pictures of the shoreline, but my mind picture for a Norwegian fjord  is of  steep mountains coming down to the waterline.  We have the same thing here with our Marlborough Sounds, and what we learn in is that the angle above the waterline tends to continue below it.  The Sounds get very deep, very quickly.  It could be that another 25 metres from the shoreline, would drop the frigate _well_ below the surface, and present an  even worse problem.

The exception being where the end of a ridge  meets the water — you cut those corners off at your peril!   Those ridges tend to be great fishing spots, and many a boat  has sat on top of one for hours, and suddenly realised that the tide has grounded them! 

So Dag, what is the latest?  Is there much coverage over there, or are they keeping it a bit secret squirrel?

[D Fosse]

In case anyone's still watching, the post-crash investigation have published their preliminary findings. They have had full access to classified material. This wasn't to assign guilt, but establish a detailed timeline and record of what actually happened.

They emphasize that no one single action or event caused the incident. It was a long chain of circumstances, decisions and actions that led up to the crash. But among the more spectacular contributing factors are these two:

• The oil tanker left the terminal with full on-deck floodlighting, which they're not supposed to, and it still appeared to Helge Ingstad as part of an on-shore installation. It was lit up like a small city. In short, they saw it the whole time, but mistook its identity in that critical time-window.
• The water-tight compartments of Helge Ingstad weren't water-tight after all. This was a flaw in the construction, and the Spanish shipyard may be in trouble. If this had been according to spec, the ship wouldn't have sunk, or at least not nearly as fast.

There's a lot more to it. On that night, all the chicken came home to roost, as the saying goes.

There's one more highly unofficial piece to the puzzle. In some interviews with people who have inside knowledge, in various capacities, it has been hinted at what has been called a "cowboy culture". That does not mean they're careless, but that risk is an accepted and indeed celebrated part of the proceedings. It's a sort of masculine ideal and tradition. Those who have read Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff" - the book; not the rather sanitized and romanticized film - will know what they mean by that.

If that is true (and based on my own experience I suspect there might be something to it) - it certainly puts the whole "female navigators" talk to final shame. If there were, it happened despite that, not because of it. But we already knew that (and several high-ranking Navy officials have said so in public, repeatedly).

[D Fosse]

And to complete the story: Helge Ingstad was a Norwegian explorer and adventurer, mostly famous for finding and excavating a Viking settlement in Newfoundland - thus proving that Christopher Columbus was preceded by about 500 years in his "discovery" of America. Obviously the continent had already been well and truly discovered by other people, but they didn't count back then. I'm sure Helge Ingstad himself appreciated the irony in this.

Even more ironic is the fact that his name is now synonymous with a sunken, failed warship. That he would not appreciate.

[jane-e]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/D+Fosse  wrote

And to complete the story: Helge Ingstad was a Norwegian explorer and adventurer, mostly famous for finding and excavating a Viking settlement in Newfoundland - thus proving that Christopher Columbus was preceded by about 500 years in his "discovery" of America.

While Columbus Day is still officially a national holiday, the tide has been turning against Christopher over the past few decades, and some cities are replacing it with “Indigenous Peoples Day”.

Columbus Day gets dropped in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day in more parts of the US - CNN

[D Fosse]

Good, about time.

The shameful treatment of Native Americans is paralleled by the Norwegian treatment of the indigenous Sami people of Northern Scandinavia. We have nothing to be proud of in that respect.