Royal New Zealand Navy loses a ship

Scott Kenny said:
The problem is that too many times the DEI hiring is decided on "This person checks X census category" BEFORE you ask questions about are they actually competent enough to do the job.

I do not give a fuck about your skin color, who or what you screw, or even who you vote for. "Can you do the job" is the ONLY criteria that matters to me.

Had an E6 in the Navy that could not be sent to work unsupervised, when an E4 straight out of school could be sent to do that job unsupervised. "We can't kick him out, he's black." No, he's a fucking hazard to the ship and everyone onboard.
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Keep telling yourself that.

The worst of the worst I ever encountered was an ex warrant officer, he was so bad that rather than have him in a squadron they sent him to a training course for two years to requalify in another field. He built a career out of being so toxic that superiors would give him whatever he wanted just to move him on and make him someone else's problem. He was white, he was straight, very definitely not a DEI hire, in fact, he was one of the jerks gunning for anyone who was even slightly different.

DEI is not the problem and never has been, the issue is some people, traditionally and still usually, white males, are carried and get away with murder. Organisations tolerate poor performance and bad behaviour, they even on occasion cover up the criminal behaviour of those whose faces fit, those they think they want to keep.

These days some diverse individuals who "lean in" are given token privilege, because they mimic the behaviours and suck up to the incompetent old white male bullies who are the gatekeepers. They are then pointed to "Hey look we are diverse, we have a black person, a gay person and a woman". The vast majority however fit the mould of needed not wanted, tolerated not liked.
 
Volkodav said:
Keep telling yourself that.

The worst of the worst I ever encountered was an ex warrant officer, he was so bad that rather than have him in a squadron they sent him to a training course for two years to requalify in another field. He built a career out of being so toxic that superiors would give him whatever he wanted just to move him on and make him someone else's problem. He was white, he was straight, very definitely not a DEI hire, in fact, he was one of the jerks gunning for anyone who was even slightly different.

DEI is not the problem and never has been, the issue is some people, traditionally and still usually, white males, are carried and get away with murder. Organisations tolerate poor performance and bad behaviour, they even on occasion cover up the criminal behaviour of those whose faces fit, those they think they want to keep.

These days some diverse individuals who "lean in" are given token privilege, because they mimic the behaviours and suck up to the incompetent old white male bullies who are the gatekeepers. They are then pointed to "Hey look we are diverse, we have a black person, a gay person and a woman". The vast majority however fit the mould of needed not wanted, tolerated not liked.
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That E6 damn near killed me. Twice.

So damn straight I have issues with people who need to be fired but aren't, cannot be, because they're a DEI hire and firing them would prove that DEI is a terrible idea.

If you're not competent, get the fuck off my submarine.
 
To look at 'political hiring/firing' on the basis of one incident is not going to work, there ARE totally ignorant and dangerous people in positions where they can and DO serious harm.

Does this mean every individual of colur or whichever box they live in is such a person? No but beleiving such ignorant hiring does not happen is a fools game. It happens every day.

We had a ?doctor? of Asian Indian descent, put in a position where she was responsible for a program of hiring medical staff from the sub continent. Years later after a scare the documents of these hirings kept on file were checked and it was found that more than half were fraudulent.

People using the certificates of relatives, certificates used that had a grade you do not want in medical or technical staff. Yes F all over the sheets. Not to mention the payments made by candidates to the hirer. These people were hired for years.

I was at one stage of my career, responsible for the safety aspects of an operating theatre suite and adjacent services. A well known surgeon of Chinese descent would go into the recovery area of the surgical department and smoke his cigars. In an O2 rich environment.......

I ponted out that it must stop. Nurses actually defended him (Not mentioning the colour of the chief antagonists, irrelevent). I was told I would be fired if I continued to cause trouble because "You mustn't upset doctors".

We had a little chat which ended up with said surgeon bursting into tears telling me he had to be able to do something for himself and he did not have time to get to a smoking area.

I got it stopped. And, I got fired.

I did the best I could but when I left, whonose?

It does not pay to stick ouir heads in the sand and saying "Lalalalalalalalalala, I can't hear you".
 
Foo Fighter said:
To look at 'political hiring/firing' on the basis of one incident is not going to work, there ARE totally ignorant and dangerous people in positions where they can and DO serious harm.

Does this mean every individual of colur or whichever box they live in is such a person? No but beleiving such ignorant hiring does not happen is a fools game. It happens every day.

We had a ?doctor? of Asian Indian descent, put in a position where she was responsible for a program of hiring medical staff from the sub continent. Years later after a scare the documents of these hirings kept on file were checked and it was found that more than half were fraudulent.

People using the certificates of relatives, certificates used that had a grade you do not want in medical or technical staff. Yes F all over the sheets. Not to mention the payments made by candidates to the hirer. These people were hired for years.

I was at one stage of my career, responsible for the safety aspects of an operating theatre suite and adjacent services. A well known surgeon of Chinese descent would go into the recovery area of the surgical department and smoke his cigars. In an O2 rich environment.......

I ponted out that it must stop. Nurses actually defended him (Not mentioning the colour of the chief antagonists, irrelevent). I was told I would be fired if I continued to cause trouble because "You mustn't upset doctors".

We had a little chat which ended up with said surgeon bursting into tears telling me he had to be able to do something for himself and he did not have time to get to a smoking area.

I got it stopped. And, I got fired.

I did the best I could but when I left, whonose?

It does not pay to stick ouir heads in the sand and saying "Lalalalalalalalalala, I can't hear you".
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Incompetence, corruption and cronyism have never been dictated by race or gender, anyone who believes it is a fool and likely a bigot.

How do morons rise within organisations? Easy, an existing moron who has already made it sees a kindred spirit and pulls them up. How do they survive despite being incompetent, again easy, they are protected. Or perhaps they are desperate, perhaps years of underfunding means there are not enough suitably qualified and experienced people.

How do incompetent people of colour and women get appointed and promoted, easy the same way as incompetent white men are, by those who are already there. Their logic, if they can't have someone the same colour and gender as they are, they will at least have someone with the same flaws.

So how does this happen?

Again easy, it has always happened, there has always been incompetence, corruption and cronyism to varying degrees, those who are protected and carried, those who protect them and those who are forced to carry them. They are the suck-ups, you know, "old toenails" the lovechild, the golden boy, the idiot son or nephew, the trust fund brat, the silver spooner.

The incompetent doctors who almost killed me were old white guys, the doctor who found what they missed was Sri Lankan, the doctor who saved my life was Indian. Does that mean all white doctors are incompetent and all immigrant doctors are competent? No not for one second. What it means is skin colour, race, place of birth or gender doesn't mean shit.
 
I was told to my face, that we could not write up that E6 for incompetence because he was one of the early USN "see, black people can do anything a white man can" hires. He only got promoted because he stocked up enough passed-the-test-but-didn't-make-the-cutoff-score points.

My very first professional encounter with him was a fire drill. Technically just the initial response teams, the roving watchstanders, simulated fire in the Central Atmospheric Monitoring System (which has a 5000v power supply in it to feed the spectrum analyzer). My guys are all the junior watchstanders, Messenger of the Watch formally speaking. All qualified submariners. I'm the senior guy of that group as an E5. Drill gets called away, we all go bolting out of Control and grab air masks on the way. We all get there and grab big CO2 extinguishers, 35lbs each. Then we all just ground and wait, because there's no point in trying to put out an electrical fire until the power is off. I'm talking to the guys about why we're waiting. We all arrived within like 30 seconds, we didn't have to run that far. About 2 minutes later, this E6 finally shows up. I am expecting him to say, "My name is Petty Officer Cunningham, I am the Man In Charge, power is simulated secured to CAMS, go attack that fire" or something similar.

(Technically, I should have made that announcement myself, since I was the senior man there but we messengers had all arrived in a group and they were already following my orders.)​

What I got was "uh fuh huh, muh fuh."
Excuse me? It's not like he was wearing his air mask. "Say again?"
"uh fuh huh, muh fuh."
Oh, hell no. This is a nightmare, this dude can't tell me anything. "Say again louder and slower?"
"uh fuh huh, muh fuh."
"Cunningham! If power is not simulated secured to CAMS, get your fucking ass back up there and secure it!" In full Command Voice that will be heard over a 747 taking off (yes, I've tested that before).
"uh fuh huh, muh fuh." and he lumbers off (dude was huge, 6'3 and like 275lbs). No sign of hurry.

I look at the Chief electrician's mate and give him a "what the fuck do we do now" expression. It's still useless to attack the fire, electrical fires will not go out till you kill power to it. And it's been simulated burning for about 5 minutes now. Whole compartment would be engulfed in flames at this point.
My padawans were looking at me with huge eyes, finally one of them says "I thought you were going to lay him out with that CO2."
"I wasn't thinking about that, I promise."

It's been a couple minutes, no announcement over the PA system that power has been simulated secured, no sign of the E6. (now that I think about it, no sign of a couple other bodies that should have showed up, either.)

EMC sighs, writes more in his notebook. "Alright, guys, secure this drill and restow all the gear."

"Aye-aye, Chief."

As my padawans and I are leaving, frankly all a bit shell-shocked, "please tell me this isn't normal"...
 
Well, anyway. Moving along.

They've stopped the salvage effort while CHOGM is on there as I assume they need the manpower there instead. I'm not sure if they've plugged or stopped the leaks (or if they've just run out of fluid to leak but I doubt that).
 
Rear Admiral Golding said that given human error was identified as the cause, a separate disciplinary process would begin after the inquiry.
Three crew members who were on the bridge as the disaster unfolded were likely to face such a process, Rear Admiral Golding added.
They were the officer in control of the ship, an officer supervising that person, and the ship's commanding officer. The navy chief would not name them.
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Oh, ...
 
An embarrassing state of affairs.

I am surprised we're letting this fuel leak continue. No wonder the local Samoan chiefs are pissed off at us.
 
Three crew members who were on the bridge as the disaster unfolded were likely to face such a process, Rear Admiral Golding added.

They were the officer in control of the ship, an officer supervising that person, and the ship's commanding officer. The navy chief would not name them.
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Hrm. Not sure I understand the organization at play here. This sounds like they had an officer directly manning the helm (USN would have had an enlisted helmsman), a second officer as Officer of the Deck, and of course the CO is getting fired because her ship ran aground.

Regardless of the CO's competence, her career was over as soon as her ship ran aground. Whether it would have sunk or not.

Training issue then, and not one like the 7th Fleet problems where the ships were supposed to all be on the same version of the control system and were not because the maintenance periods to upgrade kept getting deferred.


MrPhantomMan said:
I am surprised we're letting this fuel leak continue. No wonder the local Samoan chiefs are pissed off at us.
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It does take time to get salvage units to what is frankly kinda the far side of the world from most nautical traffic.
 
publiusr said:
Some working ship have the helipad above the level of the bridge—the bow looking bulbous.

The last time I saw ships like these outside of documentaries—was in the movie *Ffolkes*.
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Not unusual on oilfield dive support vessels and seismic ships.

I'm surprised by this foundering. I was on a ship up around Ellesmere Island in August and in 'uncharted waters' our ship was led by a zodiac with sidescan sonar kit.

Chris
 
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"flooding of tanks that could not be surveyed"?

Who the F designed that?!?

There MUST BE a way to check tank levels. Quickly! :mad:

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I also do not like that bridge layout at first glance.

Why are the controls for the bow thrusters located aft of the main thrusters? Is the view of the side of the ship better from where the bow thruster controls are located (which would be a VERY acceptable reason for the otherwise illogical location of the bow thruster controls)?

(relatively minor issue, but it came up when I saw the bridge layout)

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Why is there not a mismatch alarm/indication for the thrusters? Something that says "commanded angle does not match what the azipods are doing" On subs, we have two separate sets of indicators for planes position in a combined display. There's a flap with degree marks on a protractor, and then there are auxiliary lights around the outside of that. Those two indicators are completely separate circuits.

I realize that those azipod controllers are very intuitive in terms of feeling where you're pointing each pod, but that also means the intention for driving the ship is to not be looking at your hands. I would expect the controllers to be force feedback, and move with the azipods whether in manual or in auto. That way, you'd be able to feel that "the pods are turning your hands" when you are in auto!

Also, how did it take so long to call some kind of "loss of steerage" emergency? USN Subs, noting a mismatch between what you're telling the rudder to do and what it is doing happens in seconds.
  1. *rudder stops moving with the primary controls* <- Hey, WTF? Also, on subs, you're probably constantly bumping the rudder back and forth about 5deg or so to keep on course, so it may take 10-15 sec between bumps for you to see it, but never minutes. I had to do that on surface or submerged, so I assume that surface ships have to do the same, to adjust with the waves and swells pushing the bow around.
  2. "Offsa'deck, rudder stuck [angle], shifting to emergency [hydraulic power]" <- Notice that the helm isn't asking permission here! Helm has authority to switch between control power systems without orders. You just gotta tell the boss that you did change, and why. The reason you tell them what angle you're stuck at is so they know how fast we're going to be circling. Stuck Hard left or right likely means that a packing on the hydraulic ram blew out, stand by for a fire/hydraulic rupture emergency report.
  3. *wiggle emergency control stick to see if rudder moves with it* <- You're probably doing this wiggle while giving the OOD the first report, I'm just breaking it down step by step. Also, on the Ohios, you had two electrical yokes for normal controls and the emergency rudder control was a handle directly attached to hydraulic valves. If the rudder isn't moving with 3000psi hydraulics pushing the ram position valve under emergency control, it's really stuck.
  4. "Offsa'deck, shifted to emergency RUDDER IS STILL STUCK [angle]"
  5. "All Stop!" (engine order, for those not aware)
  6. "All Stop, Helm aye! ... "Offsa'deck, Maneuvering answers All Stop." (telling the boss that the engines have been stopped)
  7. "Very well, helm" (OOD acknowledging the report from Maneuvering via the Helm)
  8. Officer of the deck now calls maneuvering to have the hydraulic mechanic take a look at the rudder ram.
​
As close as they were to shoal waters, I'd have ordered an all back emergency to get the ship stopped. Not twisting the thrusters, unless for some stupid reason the motor doesn't reverse directly and you need to spin the azipods around.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Who the F designed that?!?
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Remember that MAWANUI was a commercial ship with grey paint and a naval ensign.... depending on how much money was spent, there may have been a lot of things not done the way a naval ship would have them done. Correcting some of those deficiencies may have been very expensive indeed.
 
I am the dumbest person in the room with my HF hat on (everyone else literally has a PHD) and we will be discussing this extensively. Commercial vessels that behave, alert and respond differently to what is expected are a major problem. Upgraded capabilities that do things differently are terrifying, mostly because you best and brightest don't know what is happening either. In those situations, it's the person, no matter their rank or experience, who first realises something is not right, that saves the day, no such person, or no ability to step up, and all is lost.
 
Yellow Palace said:
Remember that MAWANUI was a commercial ship with grey paint and a naval ensign.... depending on how much money was spent, there may have been a lot of things not done the way a naval ship would have them done. Correcting some of those deficiencies may have been very expensive indeed.
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Basic vessel safety, not a military thing.

If you're flooding into tanks and voids, you need to know that! Which means you need a way to relatively quickly access the tanks/voids to stick a measuring device into them. Basic watertight door over a place where you can see all the way to the bottom with the aid of a bright flashlight, maybe with markings to show depth of the tank/void painted or otherwise built in.

That the azipod controllers weren't powered/force feedback would be a thing that you'd probably have to pay to correct for the military. But access into tanks and voids is basic vessel safety!
 
Scott Kenny said:
Basic vessel safety, not a military thing.
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I'm well aware of the importance. I've sounded tanks on a fair number of ships, almost lost a sounding tape in one. I've also responded to flooding on a ship under construction on two occasions - in one case relying on counting rungs on a ladder to determine water depth.

I've also done certification activities for naval ships, which these days includes understanding (and fighting against, where appropriate) the appeal of simply accepting commercial practice.
Scott Kenny said:
Basic watertight door over a place where you can see all the way to the bottom with the aid of a bright flashlight, maybe with markings to show depth of the tank/void painted or otherwise built in.
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They had a platform management system with electronic level sensors, which would be perfectly fine in normal operation. Classification society rules permit 'sounding devices of approved type' in place of sounding pipes, both for civilian and naval ships. But under the conditions of the accident, the system was useless.

The problem was that they didn't know the watertight integrity of the tanks. If you don't know that, then opening the hatches to see if there's water on the other side is a really good way to get water on both sides.

Manual sounding pipes brought above the damaged waterline, as fitted to naval ships (the Authority's own standards should insist on it, even if Class doesn't), can be safely opened to check for flooding under such conditions. But adding them after build would be a complex and expensive job; one of the considerations behind the purchase of MANAWANUI was cost, and 'in line with commercial best practice' gets really tempting for non-combatant ships under those conditions.
 
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czx0z76nxggo
New Zealand's government has paid Samoa 10m Samoan Tala (NZD 6m; £2.6m) after one of its naval ships crashed into a reef in Samoan waters before catching fire and sinking last year.

HMNZS Manawanui started leaking oil into the ocean after it sank, with reports of sea turtles dying and slicks appearing on nearby Samoan beaches.

New Zealand's Foreign Minister Winston Peters said the payment had been made at Samoa's request.
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This was on last night's six o'clock news, I wonder if they will leave the wreck in place or cut it up and haul it away for recycling?
 
It will be a right sod to lift/salvage/scrap so that is the route they will likely take. Too much eco outcry if they fail to do so.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Two years to bring charges?

RNZN moves slowly.
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They're damned if they do and damned if they don't. And they know it.

The ultimate blame here lies IMHO with the RNZN for putting a systems expert into an at-sea command position as if a manager could do a commander's job. Getting away with that requires a very high level of competency of all the bridge crew underneath this sort of commander, such that the captain can skate by on their crew's ship-driving skills and do what they do best - managing the ship's systems and mission. Nothing will go wrong so long as the hull isn't placed in danger.

Unfortunately, Cmdr Gray did not have a bridge crew with a very high level of competency; she had a bridge crew that let the still partially active autopilot lead them into an unrecoverable position. The court-martial will probably answer the question of whether or not anything she did once called to the bridge could have saved the ship, but will it address the extent to which she was (or should have been) previously aware of her crew's incapacity, what (if anything) she did to rectify that incapacity, and who was ultimately responsible for sending those incapable people to sea?

The potential exists for some very awkward questions to be raised.

If she was called too late to affect the outcome, it says terrible things about crew training in the RNZN but it might also be turned back on her to explain why she didn't recognize her crew's deficiencies. That could logically lead to the conclusion that regardless of her ability to conduct the mapping mission, she lacked the important qualities and expertise of being a captain in command and should never have been given that ship.

If she wasn't called too late to affect the outcome, this will lead to testimony from captains who spent their entire careers in the ship-handling stream as to what they would have done, possibly backed up by extensive simulations, which will logically lead to her being asked why she did not do or think of any of these things; and that will also point to the conclusion that she was unfit for her position (by virtue of insufficient experience and training) and should never have been given the ship.

ALL of that will point to the people who gave her command of the hull rather than putting her in overall charge of the mission, with a captain who was both competent to manage the crew and hull under high-risk conditions and confident to tell her "It is not safe to go further inshore at this time". And if that meant overpromoting her to brevet Commodore, so be it.

It's a shame, because if she'd had a half-decent crew and XO competent in keeping the hull out of danger, I reckon she could have muddled through mapping the South Pacific for ten or fifteen years and retired as a full Commodore,

If she's found guilty, her career is over. If she's exonerated fair and square, the RNZN will be made to look bad and will probably lash out in revenge and ensure that she never goes to sea again. If it's obvious that she's whitewashed by a DEI command because of her lesbianism (so that they can avoid the tricky questions as well as the social backlash), the rank and file will never trust her again and the general public will never again trust the navy.

She can't win. The only question is whether someone can ensure that the RNZN also loses.
 
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pathology_doc said:
They're damned if they do and damned if they don't. And they know it.

The ultimate blame here lies IMHO with the RNZN for putting a systems expert into an at-sea command position as if a manager could do a commander's job. Getting away with that requires a very high level of competency of all the bridge crew underneath this sort of commander, such that the captain can skate by on their crew's ship-driving skills and do what they do best - managing the ship's systems and mission. Nothing will go wrong so long as the hull isn't placed in danger.

Unfortunately, Cmdr Gray did not have a bridge crew with a very high level of competency; she had a bridge crew that let the still partially active autopilot lead them into an unrecoverable position. The court-martial will probably answer the question of whether or not anything she did once called to the bridge could have saved the ship, but will it address the extent to which she was (or should have been) previously aware of her crew's incapacity, what (if anything) she did to rectify that incapacity, and who was ultimately responsible for sending those incapable people to sea?

The potential exists for some very awkward questions to be raised.

If she was called too late to affect the outcome, it says terrible things about crew training in the RNZN but it might also be turned back on her to explain why she didn't recognize her crew's deficiencies. That could logically lead to the conclusion that regardless of her ability to conduct the mapping mission, she lacked the important qualities and expertise of being a captain in command and should never have been given that ship.

If she wasn't called too late to affect the outcome, this will lead to testimony from captains who spent their entire careers in the ship-handling stream as to what they would have done, possibly backed up by extensive simulations, which will logically lead to her being asked why she did not do or think of any of these things; and that will also point to the conclusion that she was unfit for her position (by virtue of insufficient experience and training) and should never have been given the ship.

ALL of that will point to the people who gave her command of the hull rather than putting her in overall charge of the mission, with a captain who was both competent to manage the crew and hull under high-risk conditions and confident to tell her "It is not safe to go further inshore at this time". And if that meant overpromoting her to brevet Commodore, so be it.

It's a shame, because if she'd had a half-decent crew and XO competent in keeping the hull out of danger, I reckon she could have muddled through mapping the South Pacific for ten or fifteen years and retired as a full Commodore,

If she's found guilty, her career is over. If she's exonerated fair and square, the RNZN will be made to look bad and will probably lash out in revenge and ensure that she never goes to sea again. If it's obvious that she's whitewashed by a DEI command because of her lesbianism (so that they can avoid the tricky questions as well as the social backlash), the rank and file will never trust her again and the general public will never again trust the navy.

She can't win. The only question is whether someone can ensure that the RNZN also loses.
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I imagine there are senior officer looking to change trade very suddenly and without the option to decide for themselves. What is the potential outcome for flag level officers to feel the burn too?
 
Foo Fighter said:
I imagine there are senior officer looking to change trade very suddenly and without the option to decide for themselves. What is the potential outcome for flag level officers to feel the burn too?
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It's happened before, but you need someone on the level of Naval Reactors Himself to go stomp mudholes in careers. (7th Fleet collisions saw the Admiral in charge of 7th Fleet get fired)
 
There is also the factor of a less favoured individuals being given a cluster to deal with on the assumption they will fail. That is they don't want to poison the career of a golden child.
 
CJGibson said:
I'm surprised by this foundering. I was on a ship up around Ellesmere Island in August and in 'uncharted waters' our ship was led by a zodiac with sidescan sonar kit.
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There are occasional surprises:
https://phys.org/news/2026-04-uncharted-island-nautical.html
I wonder if the circum-Antarctic current can vary enough such that some islands are above the ocean surface for parts of the year. Lots of orographic forcing....

We have this idea that Crocker Land/Fata Morgana is all in a sailor's head.

Perhaps William R. Corliss was right about a few things.
 
I wonder if clathrates, seaweed and pumice could ever get tangled together...like vegetation mat Islands... except they can surface and submerge once a Blue Moon.

If an asteroid comes in at a shallow enough angle, the ocean could slow it and allow big pieces to stay intact as guyots....
 

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