So that ship collision.....

Given that the tanker it hit is carrying 80,000 tons of US jet fuel for the air bases in the UK, is does stink a bit.

I'm in the "coincidence" camp. Incompetent captain, badly maintained ship. Leave the tinfoil hats out of this.

Posted by: jef-wachowchow

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is does stink a bit

I think they've put the fires out by now. 😉 

My tinfoil hat quivered a bit when I saw it was US aviation fuel in the tanker, but surely no one is daft enough to risk deliberately ramming a tanker?

AIS track suggests the Solong goes back and forth on that exact route very regularly. It stinks, but I'm inclined to think we're looking an incompetent master/crew rather than anything nefarious. Unlikely things happen with regularity otherwise overall probability would break. You don't want that happening as you end up with petunias and whales falling from the sky. 

Don't think you have to be a tinfoil hat wearer to surmise that a Russian National responsible for the safe passage of a ship, who manages to ignore radar, AIS and a helm station lit up like Chernobyl, to sail said vessel into another at anchor, which was coincidentally, carrying jet fuel from the US to the UK, might just be a tad suspicious?

Remember all those Russian dashboard cams from a few years ago of insane traffic accidents, where it turned out half the Russian truck drivers were alcoholics constantly smashed out of their minds, I wouldn't be surprised if that wasn't true of Russian ship captains also.

Makes you think. 

Well it reality it doesn’t, it’s a shipping accident they occur. 

I’m sure the captain will have been tested for drugs and alcohol.

If he was sober then it looks very suspicious to me.

"Russian national" ?

Maybe a spy, but much more likely he was on his second or third bottle of vodka that day.

It looks like he goes straight as an arrow for about 200 miles, no adjustment to "aim" at all. That would be a fairly remarkable shot if it was deliberate

To what end? They have Donald Trump in the White House. The last thing Putin is going to do is pull a stunt like this. 

Posted by: downshep

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might just be a tad suspicious?

Sure, that's what makes it a coincidence, rather than just "one of those things".

You won't get me with your conspiracy theories! I have a protective hat against them 😉 

Posted by: jamesoz

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I’m sure the captain will have been tested for drugs and alcohol.

 

He probably was. And then instantly arrested for gross negligence manslaughter...

wasn't true of Russian ship captains also.

and all of the crew? all of the time?

I've seen the whats going on with shipping videos. they came out quickly against it being nefarious - saying theres no evidence of it being deliberate, as you'd expect to see the ship steering around a bit as it aims for the target, and theres nothing.

A lot of the conspiracies focus on the ship hitting a tanker chartered by the US navy. It's plausible that this part was the accident, and that the captain was trying to cause a drama. Sailing through an anchorage with all the things turned off and the crew looking elsewhere. Miss everything, hoorary, get to have another go. Clatter something, oh noes! I are soo incompetent lolz. Deliberately hitting a US ,ilitary charted tanker - almost certainly not. Disabling alarms and other actions to make a (survivable) collision likely in exchange for a few more roubles - plausible.

Given that the russians tried to take down that DHL plane, engineering a collision at sea is completely within their wheelhouse.

Overall, cock up is still way more likely than conspiracy id agree. But given the number of russian linked ships sponaneously exploding, accidentally cutting cables and now doing HMS Warspite impressions, the benefit of the doubt is all gone.

Posted by: Steve

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but surely no one is daft enough to risk deliberately ramming a tanker?

That plus they are on the same side now. 

Given, as mentioned by others, the solong was following a straight line for at least a hundred miles and it was a route it seems somewhat improbable that it was deliberate. I would go for boring routine and either being asleep on watch, pissed or both.

To what end? They have Donald Trump in the White House. The last thing Putin is going to do is pull a stunt like this. 

it would be entirely in Putins wheelhouse… so to speak. He has contradictory strategies running all the time. He has Trump dancing for him but he’s not seeking to curry favour with the US, he wants the US to pull itself apart.

in situation like this it’s win win for Putin, it may well genuinely be a an accident but he’ll allow people to think he’s behind it even if he has nothing to do with it. Phrase a denial so it sounds like a boast ala Salisbury “you can’t prove we did it”

what are the odds on the captain getting his own chat show 🙂

That plus they are on the same side now

putin is very much on his own side 

I don't think he means that Putin was on Trump's side, just that Trump is on Putin's, it's very much a one way thing.

Putin clearly has something on Trump, but god knows what

you can't park there

I blame the Vodka !

I really am sure it was just luck that it hit the US tanker [carrying fuel for the US airforce] amongst all the ships that were anchored in the designated outer anchorage.  But it does look fairly sus!

It looks like he goes straight as an arrow for about 200 miles, no adjustment to "aim" at all. That would be a fairly remarkable shot if it was deliberate

Oh it's easy if that's what you want to do:  you get the waypoint of "where you want to go" (i.e. the location of the anchored ship) from AIS, pop that into the autohelm and press go - the ship then makes continuous helm adjustments to take you right there.
Set it up early enough and it looks like a straight line.

(If you set the ship on a fixed heading it will not create a straight track as the ship will be affected by wind and tide.... to get a straight track you need to make continual adjustments.)

Putin clearly has something on Trump, but god knows what

It is rumoured that EU spooks know what it is and will spill the beans if the sanctions madness continues.

Putting all the conspiracy rubbish aside for a time.

As someone who does this for a living, ie, driving ships around (and managing not to collide with other ships), it's blatantly obvious what has happened.

Laziness and incompetence of the person on the bridge at the time, and a total lack of oversight by the captain.

Solong was on a die straight course, so probably on auto track or auto pilot.  If it was a deliberate act there would have to have been a few adjustments in the last couple of miles to make the near perfect T-Bone amidships.  Don't forget that ships at anchor do move around a bit, so couldn't have been planned miles and miles in advance, beyond visual range.

The watch keeper probably ignored the Alarms as they were being too much of a nuisance, Captain probably disabled the BNWAS as it kept going off in his cabin.  Coastal waters so lots of passing fishing vessels and wind farm boats too.

I could ramble on and explain in detail, but its a matter for the investigation to take its course and somebody is going to jail in a few years time.

I reckon they switched on the autopilot, then captain might have fallen asleep after some drinking sessions or went for a dump, while the rest of the crew simply took their "leave" while captain was not at the station.  Or they were all on their mobile phone watching some interesting video clips.  

HMS Warspite impressions

Earning the most battle honours of any individual warship in RN history, including Jutland and Matapan, and providing NGFS for the Normandy landings? 🤔

Oh it's easy if that's what you want to do:  you get the waypoint of "where you want to go" (i.e. the location of the anchored ship) from AIS, pop that into the autohelm and press go - the ship then makes continuous helm adjustments to take you right there.
Set it up early enough and it looks like a straight line.

(If you set the ship on a fixed heading it will not create a straight track as the ship will be affected by wind and tide.... to get a straight track you need to make continual adjustments.)

You've missed an important point - anchored ships don't stay perfectly in one spot. If the wind had changed they would've gone straight past

Posted by: Sandwich

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Putin clearly has something on Trump, but god knows what

It is rumoured that EU spooks know what it is and will spill the beans if the sanctions madness continues.

Interesting. Expand? 

Posted by: downshep

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Don't think you have to be a tinfoil hat wearer to surmise that a Russian National responsible for the safe passage of a ship, who manages to ignore radar, AIS and a helm station lit up like Chernobyl, to sail said vessel into another at anchor, which was coincidentally, carrying jet fuel from the US to the UK, might just be a tad suspicious?

also clearly charted rocks etc

Even navies which have (AIUI) much better bridge staffing than merchant ships are capable of this one.

Posted by: Sandwich

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Posted by: Sandwich

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Putin clearly has something on Trump, but god knows what

It is rumoured that EU spooks know what it is and will spill the beans if the sanctions madness continues.

 

 

Interesting. Expand

i was reading something by someone fairly senior in the Khazak security services, and he was saying that Trump (and others) were recruited by the KGB in the late 1980s.

Nothing would surprise me any more and that certainly seems plausible. 

Have a look for Agent Krasnov, the Guardian and France24 have both written about it. No doubt MI6 have a lot more details 

We can all see how trump behaves - he's utterly unmanageable. By what stretch of the imagination would anyone think he's been 'recruited' - that he's got the discipline, even the attention span,  to take orders from anyone, stick to a plan..... for 40 years. All Putin has ever done, and all anyone needs to do, is flatter him a bit. Nothing clandestine required, Trump pretty much says out loud what buttons you need to push.

Posted by: MacCruiskeen

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We can all see how trump behaves - he's utterly unmanageable. By what stretch of the imagination would anyone think he's been 'recruited' - that he's got the discipline, even the attention span,  to take orders from anyone, stick to a plan..... for 40 years. All Putin has ever done, and all anyone needs to do, is flatter him a bit. Nothing clandestine required, Trump pretty much says out loud what buttons you need to push.

the handler would be a firm favourite for "employee of the century" if that were true.

I saw a model for the trump admin, and it's a nautical analogy so it might as well go here...

All admins are made up of different interest groups, these are like hands on the wheel, pulling in different directions. You can predict the course of an admin as different groups rise and fall in terms of their political capital. In the case of the trump admin, theres corporatists, nationalists, isolationalists etc. These are all rational and predictable.

What sets the tump admin apart is trump himself, rather than acting as a captain, he is instead, a metric ****ton of water, sloshing around the bottom of the boat. No ideology, just chaos, making the whole thing unstable. 

seadog101 explained it perfectly.

As someone who used to do it for a living, it's been an issue with the bridge watchkeeper that caused the problem.

Maybe he's had a heart attack or maybe just asleep.

Those little feeder ships can have very busy schedules and the crews can be absolutely exhausted. The person on the bridge, may had been up for hours loading and discharging, before grabbing some sleep and then back to work.

It would also take a fearless person to drive a ship into a tanker at 16 knots, whatever their cause.

I remember when the Evergreen went aground in the Suez and all the Qanon lot, said it was a joint operation between the Navy Seals and Spetnaz, to rescue the cabals trafficked children.

Even Laurence Fox joined in when the Baltimore Bridge was hit. 

he was saying that Trump (and others) were recruited by the KGB in the late 1980s.

I guess Trump was attracted by the money. 

I don’t know. I doubt the money will be good enough, and kompromat won’t work for a man who will just brazen it out.

By what stretch of the imagination would anyone think he's been 'recruited' - that he's got the discipline, even the attention span,  to take orders from anyone, stick to a plan..... for 40 years.

I read something a few years ago which basically said Trump (among others) had been identified as potentailly useful by the KGB/FSB many years ago as he was so stupid and open to a 'deal' that he wouldn't even realise he was being played by Russia. I'm not into conspiracy stuff but it doesn’t look too far fetched at the minute and having backed both Clinton and Biden when they ran against Trump I could see Musk thinking the same at the minute 

Square miles of vast empty oceans and they still manage a fender bender at sea. 

As with many others, my immediate thought was "piished out of his head on shiiite Vodka".  

No avoidance at all ? Only one actually on the bridge, and was unconscious from the alcohol.  

Read enough accident reports, inc from NTSB, and either not being correctly staffed on the bridge, and/ or being asleep either from alcohol or drugs or just sheet fatigue, is all too common. Usually the hit the banking or moorings or the occasional bridge. But sometimes other boats.

There’s a bumper of a Danish MAIB report about a Mærsk towing job that went pear-shaped and resulted in both vessels under tow sinking. No booze involved mind you.

Who said worse things happen at sea?

If you want nefarious, have a look at the tracks for the ships dragging anchors! Nothing to see here…

Posted by: jef-wachowchow

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Given that the tanker it hit is carrying 80,000 tons of US jet fuel for the air bases in the UK, is does stink a bit.

Especially if you’re downwind…

But yes, as soon as I heard that the ships master is a Russian, and the radar track showed the container ship heading directly for a very large stationary vessel without any indication of attempting to steer away, my spidey senses went into overdrive!

Russian asset? Possibly, there’s a lot of it about.

Posted by: countzero

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heading directly for a very large stationary vessel without any indication of attempting to steer away

A very large vessel that is moving around, could move away before it reaches and no movement to fine tune as they got closer. 

Spidey man was never very nautical. 

Posted by: ry

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Square miles of vast empty oceans and they still manage a fender bender at sea

Never criticising women drivers again....

That's the thing with the draggy anchors, and this collision. Any one of them could easily have been an accident. All of them? Less likely.

I am worried that I'm turning into a conspiracy nut but I really don't know what to believe any more. Which I guess means that the whole 'alternative facts' thing has worked. 

Sorry mate, I didn't see you

Posted by: TiRed

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If you want nefarious, have a look at the tracks for the ships dragging anchors!

Yeah they are definitely dodgy as ****. This one is rather less so.

Aside from anything else can you imagine the briefing?

"Vladimir: you will drop your anchor here and float ten miles N to take out this cable."

"da"

"Dmitri : you will drop your anchor here and float twenty miles SE to take out this cable."

"da"

"Boris: you will line up here and proceed at 16 knots to ram this tanker filled with jet fuel".

"Da, wait a second, what?. Cant I snag a cable instead? I knew I shouldnt have snogged your wife at the Christmas party".

I read something a few years ago which basically said Trump (among others) had been identified as potentailly useful by the KGB/FSB many years ago as he was so stupid and open to a 'deal' that he wouldn't even realise he was being played by Russia. 

I very much doubt that the KGB ever had a policy of recruiting stupid people but if they did of what benefit would have Donald Trump been to them in the late 1980s?

Trump first stood for elected office less than ten years ago, what made him attractive to the KGB 40 years ago? And how did they entice him since presumably he didn't need suitcases full of cash? Or was Donald Trump a committed communist back in the 1980s?

Whatever the reasons for the accident it isn't because Russia wants to deny aviation fuel to the United States air force. Russia is not at war with the United States so disrupting their supplies of aviation fuel serves no significant purpose to them.

And if they were at war with the United States and disrupting their supplies of aviation fuel was of strategic importance to them they have far better options than getting some geezer with a Russian passport a job on a Portuguese registered vessel sailing from Scotland so that he can use it as some sort of random and totally unreliable weapon against a US registered tanker.

Drones for example 💡

Trump has always been an egotistical prat. I can imagine the old USSR identifying him as a potentially useful rich idiot, given the circles he moved in, and pandering to his ego, maybe getting some compromising stuff as a back up.

Moving forwards, maybe he liked the idea of being an oligarch figure in the US, maybe the Russians bailed him out when his money ran out, maybe they saw he admired Putins style of leadership and world view, so they gave him the bot army, the media muscle, created the divisions in the world he could exploit. 

Maybe that's all bollocks. Either way, he's proved useful to Putins Russia, whichever of them thinks they are controlling his actions.

Posted by: ernielynch

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Whatever the reasons for the accident it isn't because Russia wants to deny aviation fuel to the United States air force. Russia is not at war with the United States so disrupting their supplies of aviation fuel serves no significant purpose to them.

Has the US been providing aviation fuel to the Ukrainian air force? I agree there's no reason for Russia to pick a fight with the US, but where else does US fuel go?

Just thinking aloud

Mad vlad must be chuckling away to himself.  The conspiracy theorists are doing his work for him by planting the belief that it was a Russian op.  He didn’t have to anything except have a slightly shitter standard of marine enforcement / mariner scrutiny that some other countries and citizens desparate for money so willing to work under conditions where safety is not the number one prioirty!

I absolutely fall into the camp of if It looks like a duck and quacks like one it’s probably a duck!

Russia would quite happily make a ‘statement’ by sinking/ causing an eco disaster on our shores. A reminder if you like that America and the Uk have vulnerabilities. 

As for a Russian citizen (if that’s all he is) being coerced to do this, again absolutely believable. 

I personally think it’s a message, for us a warning about our position and recent robust talk regarding Ukraine, for the Americans (trump) it says ‘you’re going off message’.

Im not usually a conspiracy theorist however remember Russia has used chemical weapons multiple times in our country to assassinate with no regard for collateral, they use hybrid warfare regularly and they’ve got links in the anchor dragging with the grey fleet. what’s so hard to believe this was intentional? It’s definitely more plausible than not.

Im expecting the next few years to be punctuated by cyber attacks and disinformation campaigns, hopefully it remains at that level. 

We are all getting that it was a Russian  captain but the ship is registered  in Madeira Portugal and owned by Ernst Russ a company based in Hamburg